MANET AND THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS KUOUARD MANKT, 1863 ALI'HONSE I.EOROS MANET AND THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS PISSARRO— CLAUDE MONET— SISLEY— RENOIR— BERTHE MORISOT— CEZANNE— GUILLAUMIN BY THfiODORE DURET TRANSLATED BY J. E. CRAWFORD FLITCH, M.A. ILLUSTRATED WITH FOUR ETCHINGS FOUR WOOD ENGRAVINGS, AND THIRTY-TWO REPRODUCTIONS IN HALF-TONE LONDON GRANT RICHARDS PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY ND INTRODUCTION PAINTING in France in the nineteenth century followed a course parallel with that of the intellectual life of the country ; it adapted itself to the various changes in modes of thought ; it took upon itself a succession of forms corresponding to those which were evolved in literature. At the beginning of the century, under the Empire, painting was classical. It was primarily engaged in rendering scenes borrowed from the antique world of Greece and Rome, and sub- jects derived from fable and mythology. Historical painting formed the essence of high art. It was based upon the nude, treated according to the classical model. Two masters — David and Ingres — were the representatives of this form of French art, and gave it its loftiest expression. After them, classical art was continued in an enfeebled condition by painters of only secondary importance. The new spirit of romanticism, however, which had arisen in literature, also made its appearance in painting. Delacroix was the master in whom it found its most complete expression. The tones of classical art, sober, restrained, and often cold, gave place in his work to warm and brilliant coloration. For the nicely balanced scenes of classical antiquity, he substituted compositions tumul- tuous with movement. Romanticism developed freedom of action and expressiveness of pose to their utmost limits. Painting was then conquered by realism, which had also in- vaded literature. Courbet was its great initiator. He painted the life that he saw round about him in a direct, robust manner. He also painted landscape with a truthfulness that was informed by a powerful emotion. At the same time, Rousseau and Corot had also brought landscape painting into close touch with nature. vi INTRODUCTION They had re-discovered its soul and its charm. Finally, crowning as it were the work of their predecessors, came Manet and the Impressionists. Manet was the painter of real life. He waged a long and ultimately victorious warfare with the men who clung to the belated and exhausted classical tradition. Together with a new and individual vision, he introduced into painting the bright tones and the luminous brilliance, which were adopted by the Impres- sionists, who were originally formed by him. These qualities they afterwards extended and developed, particularly in applying them to the painting of landscape in the open air. It is the history of Manet and the Impressionists which we propose to deal with in this book. CONTENTS PART I EDOUARD MANET CHAP' PAGE I. EARLY YEARS • • 3 II. IN COUTURE'S STUDIO 6 III. EARLY WORKS . „ IV. LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE 18 V. THE OLYMPIA . 23 VI. THE PRIVATE EXHIBITION OF 1867 33 VII. FROM 1868 TO 1871 45 VIII. LE BON BOCK 6l IX. THE OPEN AIR ?I X. ENGRAVINGS AND DRAWINGS . . . ' . . .88 XI. LAST YEARS 92 PART II THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS * . XII. THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP IO5 XIII. PISSARRO I26 vii viii CONTENTS CHAP. "'AGE XIV. CLAUDE MONET 137 XV. SISLEY IS' XVI. RENOIR 159 XVII. BERTHE MORISOT 170 XVIII. CEZANNE i?7 XIX. GUILLAUMIN 189 XX. IN 1909 193 APPENDICES APPENDIX I 209 APPENDIX II 278 APPENDIX III , 280 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ETCHINGS FACE PORTRAIT OF BERTHE MORISOT (MANET) 90 JEUNE FILLE ETENDUE (BERTHE MORISOT) 106 BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) 114 JEUNES FILLES (RENOIR) 198 (The above are printed from the original plates.) WOOD ENGRAVINGS LOLA DE VALENCE 74 Engraved by JACQUES BBLTRAND after the lithograph by MANET. LA PARISIENNE 98 Drawn on wood by MANET, engraved by PRUNAIRE. DANSEUSE 122 Drawn by DEGAS, engraved by JACQUES BELTRAND. LES PORTEUSES DE FAGOTS 134 Drawn by CAMILLE PisSARRO, engraved by LUCIEN PissARRO. HALF-TONE ENGRAVINGS EDOUARD MANET, 1863 (ALPHONSE LEGROS) ..... . . Frontispiece LE GUITARERO (MANET) 14 LA MUSIQUE AUX TUILERIES (MANET) 16 Municipal Gallery, Dublin. "' b x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE (MANET) 20 Music des Arts Dicoratifs, Paris. OLYMPIA (MANET) 26 Music du Louvre. LA CHANTEUSE DES RUES (MANET) 36 Collection of Mrs. Sears , Boston. UNE JEUNE FEMME (MANET) 46 Metropolitan Museum, New York. EVA GONZALES (MANET) 5° Municipal Gallery, Dublin. UN ATELIER AUX BATIGNOLLES (FANTIN-LATOUR) 52 Music du Luxembourg. COMBAT DU KEARSAGE ET DE L'ALABAMA 62 Collection ofMr.J. J. Johnson, Philadelphia. LE BON BOCK (MANET) 64 Collection Arnhold, Berlin. EN BATEAU (MANET) 84 Collection of Mrs. H. 0. Havcmcycr, New York. ROUTE A LOUVECIENNES (PisSARRO) 128 SYDEN HAM ROAD (PISSARROX . , 130 BERGERE (PISSARRO) 132 FALAISE A ETRETAT (CLAUDE MONET) . . . . . - . . . .140 THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON (CLAUDE MONET) . . .144 WATERLOO BRIDGE (CLAUDE MONET) 148 LA SEINE A BOUGIVAL (SiSLEY) 152 THE SERPENTINE, LONDON (SiSLEV) 154 LES MOULINS DE MORET (SiSLEY) 156 BAIGNEUSE (RENOIR) l6o MADAME CHAR PENTIER ET SES DEUX FILLES (RENOIR) . . . .164 Metropolitan Museum, New York. TETE DE JEUNE FILLE (RENOIR) . . !66 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi JEUNE FEMME AU BAL (BERTHE MORISOT) ',"70 Music du Luxembourg. DANS UN PARC (BERTHE MORISOT) J74 SON PORTRAIT PAR LUI-MEME (CEZANNE) I?8 NATURE MORTE (CEZANNE) ,82 PAYSAGE (CEZANNE) ,86 PAYSAGE (GUILLAUMIN) FEMME LISANT DANS LA CAMPAGNE (GUILLAUMIN) .... 194 LES PARAPLUIES (RENOIR) . . . 204 Municipal Gallery, Dublin. PART I tiDOUARD MANET CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS I^DOUARD MANET was born in Paris on the 23rd of January 1832, at No. 5 Rue des Petits-Augustins (now Rue Bonaparte), and was baptized on the following 2nd of February at the Church of St. Germain-des-Pres. He was the eldest of three brothers. Their father was a magistrate, and a man of means,— a member of that venerable and prosperous bourgeoisie which flourished and became powerful during the reign of Louis Philippe. Their mother, whose maiden name was Fournier, belonged to the same class.' Her father was in the diplomatic service, and had taken a part in the negotiations which resulted in the elevation of Marshal Bernadotte to the throne of Sweden. She had a brother in the army, who rose to the rank of colonel. The bourgeoisie, before the revolution of 1848, which robbed it of its power, and the advent of universal suffrage, which fused it more or less with the people, formed a really distinct class. After having fought and conquered the old nobility, it was itself in turn deprived of its pride of place. The legal families belonging to it, from whom the bench and the bar were recruited, preserved customs and traditions of their own, handed down from the ancient park- merits. They breathed the atmosphere of a particular kind of culture ; they were carefully trained in classics, and in the rhetoric which obtained at the Palais. In this circle, the men who rose to positions in the magistracy assumed a sort of ascendency, and were held in considerable esteem. At this time the magis- stracy still formed a kind of priesthood. It was jealous of the dignity of its office ; it commanded general respect in the world at large. The father of Edouard Manet, a judge of the Tribunal of the Seine, personified in himself all the characteristics of the 4 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS class to which he belonged, the bourgeoisie, and also of his own particular world within that class, the magistracy. Manet, therefore, may be said to have been born almost in the purple. He grew up in an atmosphere of ancient tradition. The characteristics, social and moral, which he had inherited remained as firmly planted in him throughout his life as his innate artistic instinct. Essentially he remained a man of the world, refined, courteous, polished, taking pleasure in society, fond of frequenting salons, where he was remarked and admired for his verve and his flashing wit. In a man brought up in this atmosphere, the impulse towards the life of an artist must have been very strong to have dominated all his other tendencies. It may be said of Manet that he was indeed formed by nature to be a painter ; his gift of vision and sensation made it inevitable that he should find his life's work in devoting himself to painting. Naturally his vocation was bound to show itself early, and was certain to result in a rupture with his family. His family had planned a career for him at the bar or the bench, or in the civil service. He would go through the classical curriculum, which, in the days of university mono- poly, was given in the State colleges ; he would take his degree of Bachelier es lettres, would then study law, and would pass the examination qualifying him for a call to the bar. But Manet showed no desire to follow the traditional path which was marked out for him. In his very early youth he was put under the charge of the Abbe" Poiloup, who then kept a school at Vaugirard. From there he was sent to continue his studies at the College Rollin. His maternal uncle, Colonel Fournier, used to spend his leisure time in drawing, and it was from him that Manet, while still quite young, acquired that taste for drawing and painting which circumstances developed into an overmaster- ing passion. It was at about the age of sixteen that he felt his vocation caUing him so strongly, that he announced his wish of becoming an artist. At that time, the decision of an eldest son to become a painter was enough to drive a family of old and respectable traditions to despair. To become an artist was to lose caste EARLY YEARS 5 and to go astray. Manet was urged to change his mind, but as usually happens when a natural instinct is thwarted, he broke out into open revolt. He was so refractory, that his parents found it impossible to force their will upon him, and yet it never entered their thoughts to give way to his wishes. Their determination that he should not be an artist, and the boy's refusal to study law, resulted in an impasse ; accordingly, hot-headed and anxious to solve the difficulty, he said he would be a sailor. His parents preferred to let him go to sea rather than to a studio. His father accompanied him to Le Havre, where he embarked as an apprentice on La Guadeloupe, a merchant vessel bound for Rio de Janeiro. Thus he made the voyage to Brazil and back. The only adventure that happened to him was an opportunity which he had of putting into practice, for the first time, his talent as a painter. The ship's cargo included a number of Dutch cheeses, which had been somewhat discoloured by the action of the salt water. The captain, knowing the gift of the young apprentice, chose him in preference to the others to put the matter right. Manet was fond of telling how, armed with a brush and a pot of paint of the right colour, he painted the cheeses so as to give the fullest satisfaction ! On his return from Brazil, his parents, who had expected that the voyage would have made him docile, and that they would be able to bring him to their own way of thinking, found him as stubborn as before. They therefore resigned themselves to the inevitable, and allowed him to embrace the career of an artist. CHAPTER II IN COUTURE'S STUDIO HAVING overcome the opposition of his family and obtained per- mission to follow his own vocation, Manet chose Thomas Couture for his master, with his father's acquiescence, and entered his studio. No painter ever strove harder to acquire a mastery of his craft than Manet. Finding himself at last inside a studio, he set himself to work diligently, and, at the beginning, at all events, endeavoured to make the most of the teaching that was to be had there. But Manet was possessed of a strong sense of individuality, and was dominated by the impulse which urges all men of original character to follow an independent course. The very effort which he made to give his own latent talent expression, rendered him a somewhat refractory pupil, perpetually at loggerheads with his master. The two were of entirely different character. M. Antonin Proust, who was Manet's friend at the College Rollin, and afterwards his fellow-pupil in Couture's studio, has given some account in the Revue Blanche of the relations that existed between master and pupil. It is a long story of constant collisions, of quarrels followed by reconciliations, but, as the dissensions sprung from a fundamen- tal difference, they inevitably broke out again and ended in a definite hostility. Indeed, the youth whom Couture had taken into his studio was destined to be the man who, more than any other, was to undermine that conventional art of which Couture was one of the chief apostles. In taking Manet into his studio, he had let the wolf into the sheepfold. A final rupture between the two men was inevitable, for the one instinctively attacked what the other defended ; and as his judgment matured and became conscious of itself, Manet devoted himself to undoing his master's work. IN COUTURE'S STUDIO 7 About 1850, at the time when Manet entered his studio, Couture was already famous. He held a distinguished place among the masters of historical painting, then regarded as forming the essence of what was called le grand art. His system of aesthetics was governed by a regard for certain definite traditions, devotion to fixed principles, and observance of a transmitted routine. Like the majority of the artists of his time, he believed in the excellence of a fixed ideal, as opposed to what was spoken of with horror as " realism." Certain subjects alone were then thought to be worthy of art. Preference was given to scenes drawn from classical antiquity, and to the portrayal of the Greeks and Romans, as being of a nature noble in themselves. On the other hand, men of the modern age, with their frock - coats and everyday clothes, were to be avoided as offering realistic themes, destructive of true art. Religious subjects still formed a part of this grand art, but its fount and origin was above all to be found in the nude. Then, on a lower but still respectable plane, came compositions which were derived from those countries which the imagination had invested with a certain superior prestige, — the Orient for example. An Egyptian landscape was in itself a subject worthy of art ; an artist devoted to the ideal was permitted to paint the sands of the desert, but he would have degraded him- self and fallen into the abyss of realism if he painted a Normandy pasture with its cows and apple-trees. Couture was a fervent upholder of the traditions of this grand art. He had brought himself notably before the public eye by a picture of large dimensions, exhibited in the Salon of 1847, which had had a signal success — Les Romains de la decadence. The picture is now in the Louvre. An examination of it serves to reveal the precise value of this grand art as practised by Couture and his con- temporaries. The decline of Rome ! — truly a subject to stimulate thought and give wing to the imagination. But this decline, which was really the passing of a society from one civilisation to another, Couture has conceived simply under the form of a physical deterioration. His Romans of the decadence are pale, emasculated creatures, wasted by excess. Let it be accepted that after all an 8 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS artist is not required to view history from the historian's stand- point. Nevertheless what we cannot forgive in him, what prevents us from admiring his work, is that his Romans are in no way men of the antique mould, — whether it be intended to recreate by a faithful study of the sculptured monuments the exact type of the ancient Roman, or whether to show forth the image of antiquity by evoking imaginatively forms different from those of our own time. Nicolas Poussin has executed a work of this order — L'Enleve- ment des Sabims. He has truly evoked a moment of the past ; he has created a certain breed of men, who possibly are quite unlike the real, primitive Roman, but who are, however, the product of an original conception, and transport us into an imaginary world, different from our own. The Romans of Couture offer nothing similar; they give no hint of an effort towards reconstruction ; they are men of the nineteenth century, ordinary models whom the artist has posed, whose features he has reproduced, without being able to transform them. Moreover, they are arranged according to traditional rules and accepted con- ventions : a central group in full light, then accessory groups on the right and left, one figure balancing or contrasting with another, the lights and shadows unreal and artificial. There is no motive to bind the figures together in a common action ; they remain isolated ; the effort which has disposed them side by side is too perceptible. Above all, this immense canvas suggests no emotion. Returning to the Enlcvement des Sabines, one sees that Poussin on the contrary has succeeded in compelling each figure to contri- bute to building up the effect of the whole. The crowd moves with a sudden animation ; life, interest, terror, spring out of the action itself. Though small in scale the figures give a real sensa- tion of strength and mass, that is altogether lacking in the men whose proportions Couture has magnified in vain. The fact is that the true historical painter must belong to a certain age ; in order to recreate antiquity convincingly he must live, as in the seven- teenth century, at a time when thought moves naturally in the circle of literary traditions, and, in addition, like Nicolas Poussin, he must have genius. But, when the conditions have entirely IN COUTURE'S STUDIO 9 changed, the attempt to perpetuate the original inventive impulse by means of the formulas of a school, results only in mediocre works, lacking the breath of life. Despite all his effort. Couture never reached the goal. Of its kind, his work is manifestly better than that of others. After all, even the imperfect management of such a vast composition demanded talent ; incontestibly the man who achieved it possessed some of the qualities of the painter. But in an unpropitious age, and in the absence of creative genius, all Couture's labour and pains were unable to realise the desired vision of the ancient world. The tradition-made art of which Couture was one of the fore- most exponents had at this time fallen into decrepitude ; the study of his own works and those of contemporaries reveals its exhaustion. At the moment when Manet appeared there was therefore a conflict between the artists of established repute, stubbornly determined to continue an outworn tradition, and those students who were groping after reality and seeking to create forms of art more suited to new requirements. Couture held with those who wished to prolong indefinitely the formulas of the past ; Manet was in the foremost rank of the young men in whom the ferment of the innovating temper was at work. The collision and friction between master and pupil was only the mani- festation, in the form of a personal combat, of the vaster strife which was being waged between conflicting modes of thought and antagonistic conceptions of art. The memoirs of M. Antonin Proust show that Manet became filled with an increasingly lively aversion from the genre of histori- cal painting, which his master practised and wished him to culti- vate, and that, the more he became conscious of his own ability, the more he was drawn towards the observation of real life. Couture discovered that his pupil was escaping from his tutelage, and was moving towards what he himself abhorred and designated by the contemptuous name of realism. In so doing, he believed that Manet was ruining his career, and one day he said to him : " Go on, my boy, you'll never be anything more than the Daumier of your time." That disparagement should be implied by a com- parison with Daumier causes no little astonishment nowadays. 10 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Times have changed ! Despised by the partisans of the historical school, which reigned supreme in his day, as a mere caricaturist and realist, Daumier is now admired as one of the great artists of the past. Couture, on the other hand, obstinately sticking to the rut of a decrepit form of art, is now condemned and almost forgotten. Manet's growing aversion from traditional art showed itself in the contempt which he felt for models, with their studio poses, and for the study of the nude as it was then carried on. The worship of the antique, or of what the painters of the first half of the nineteenth century understood as the antique, had led to the cult of the professional model. Large and ample forms Avere de- manded. The men, in particular, were required to have a broad, well-arched chest, a powerful torso, muscular limbs. The indi- viduals endowed with the necessary qualities, when they posed in the studio, assumed attitudes supposed to be expressive and heroic, but always strained, conventional, lacking in spontaneity. Manet, with his impulse towards reality and his love of experiment, was exasperated by these monotonous postures of a monotonous type. Hence his relations with his models were never cordial. He tried to make them pose in attitudes to which they were unaccustomed, and they refused. In general, they had a fine conceit of them- selves. Famous models who had seen the studies for which they had sat crowned with the Prix de Rome, the highest honour then possible, were vain enough to attribute a part of the success to themselves. Naturally they were indignant with a very young man, who showed them no respect. It appears that Manet, weary of the eternal study of the nude, attempted to drape and even to clothe his models, a treatment which they keenly resented. Manet, therefore, was on very bad terms with Couture when he left his studio about 1856,1 and in open revolt against his teach- ing. Historical painting and the painting of nude from profes- sional models had filled him with detestation. 1 A receipt which has been preserved, dated February 1856, shows that Couture was at that period still receiving studio fees from Manet. CHAPTER III EARLY WORKS His own master at last, Manet established himself in a studio in the Rue Lavoisier. What was he going to do ? One point he saw clearly. He would abandon the academic tradition, the conventional methods, the pseudo-classical ideal, which he had come to hate while in Couture's studio, and he would begin to paint life as he found it. His models would no longer be trained or professional, he would choose them from the diver- sified types which the multitudinous world of men and women had to offer. Between this first abstract view and its realisation, however, was all the distance which separates an indefinite con- ception from a precisely formulated creation. He had arrived at that point of departure to which all innovators who feel themselves tormented by the restless spirit of invention must come, — that necessary experimental period through which they must pass, in order to discover themselves, before they can hope to build upon their own foundation. He continued to work, to observe, to learn. He frequented the Louvre and travelled abroad. He visited Holland, where he fell in love with Franz Hals, and Germany, where he saw the galleries of Dresden and Munich. Then the attractions of the Venetians led him to Italy. To this period belong some copies executed as closely after the originals as possible. He copied a Rembrandt at Munich, and brought back from Florence a head by Filippo Lippi. He also copied at the Louvre the Petits Cavaliers by Velasquez, the Vierge au lapin blanc by Titian, and Tintoretto's portrait of himself. For the last master he had a particular admiration ; when he went to the Louvre he never failed to stop before this portrait, which he held to be one of the finest in the world. 11 12 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS At the same time, he began to paint according to the code of aesthetics which he had framed for himself, taking his models from the living world around him. One of his first original works was the Enfant aux cerises, — a young boy with a red cap, holding in front of him a basket of cherries. A more important work of the same period was the Buveur d1 absinthe, in 1859. The drinker, life-sized, wearing a high hat, is sitting wrapped in a brown cloak. His lugubrious aspect well conveys the idea of the moral and physical ruin that results from abuse of absinthe. The picture is certainly characteristic ; but although the painter's personality is revealed, it is not yet shown entirely purged of a certain alloy of foreign and derivative elements. It is remini- scent of the studio through which the painter passed. It is only the more accentuated continuation of those studies done at Couture's. Their freedom and quality of paint had won the admiration of the other students, but, though already they showed power, they necessarily bore the stamp of their place of origin. It is only in the nature of things that the earliest work of a young man, however great his native originality, should carry the imprint of the environment in which he grows up and of the master from whom he receives his first instruction. After the JBuveur cF absinthe comes the Nymphe surprise. She bends forward, partially hiding herself in drapery. It is a fine study of the nude, but it is still felt to be the work of a man who is trying to find himself. It discovers the influence of the Venetians. Moreover, the mythological title, — an exceptional experiment in the nomenclature of his pictures which he never repeated, — shows that at this time Manet was living among the artists of the Renaissance, even in his admiration of them borrowing from their vocabulary. While he admired the Venetians, Manet also came under the spell of the Spaniards, — Velasquez, Greco, and Goya. To this early period belong his first pictures with a Spanish motive. The introduction of Spanish characters into his pictures must not necessarily be attributed entirely to an inspiration drawn from his study of Velasquez and Goya. Although at the very begin- ning of his career he went to see the galleries of Holland and EARLY WORKS 13 Germany, he did not see the Spaniards at Madrid until 1865, when his personality was fully developed. The first pictures devoted to Spanish subjects were suggested to him by a troupe of singers and dancers who had come to Paris. The charm of their originality filled him with a desire to paint them. Among the first pictures of this order is the Ballet espagnol, a canvas in which the figures, standing and seated, are ranged in a line side by side. It reveals Manet's gift of painting in full light, and of harmoniously combining the most dissimilar tones. Later, in 1862, he painted the dancer, Lola de Valence. The skirt with its flowers of many colours, the white veil and the blue neckerchief which encircle the head and shoulders, are rendered with the utmost freedom. The face and the eyes so full of life reveal that strange type of a kind of refined bar- barity which the Arabs brought and bequeathed to the shores of Valencia. At this time, when Manet was still unknown, the only man who visited his studio, who understood and admired him, was the poet Baudelaire. Baudelaire prided himself on the fact that nothing was too audacious, no one too daring, for his liking. He had for a long time been writing art criticism, which he wished to establish on other than conventional principles. Dis- covering Manet to be a fearless innovator, he encouraged him and defended those of his works which were most assailed. He greatly admired the painting of Lola de Valence, and wrote the following quatrain in her honour : — " Entre tant de beautes que partout on peut voir, Je comprends bien, amis, que le desir balance; Mais on voit scintiller dans Lola de Valence, Le charme inattendu d'un bijou rose et noir." At this period it was essential for every painter to exhibit at the Salon. Admission to the Salon marked the moment when the artist who had just emerged from his student period felt sufficiently sure of himself to appeal to the verdict of the public. Manet first attempted to obtain a place on its walls with the Buveur d 'absinthe in 1859. The jury rejected it. The Salon 14 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS was then held only every alternate year ; it did not become annual until 1863. As there was no exhibition in 1860, Manet could not renew his attempt till 1861. In that year he sub- mitted to the jury Portraits de M. et Mine. M . . . . (his father and mother) and L Espagnol jouant de la guitare (also known as Le Chanteur espagnol and Le Guitarero}. This time both pictures were accepted. The year 1861 thus marks the moment when Manet first came into touch with the public. The head and shoulder portraits of his father and mother, occupying the same canvas, are painted in that rather hard manner, with a contrast of blacks and whites, which he affected in certain of his early pictures,— for example, in Angelina, now in the Caille- botte collection at the Luxembourg. It also unintentionally reveals a characteristic which was to become more marked after- wards, his fondness for painting still life. The mother holds a basket containing balls of wool of different colours, which har- monise, however, with the rest of the picture. These small portraits did not attract much attention ; his success was achieved with the other more important work, the life-sized portrait of a Spaniard singing. The singer belonged to that troupe of musicians and dancers which had also provided Manet with Le Ballet espagnol and Lola de Valence. He had, therefore, the merit of being a real Spaniard. He was one of those types not to be found among professional models, but only in the world outside the studio, to whom Manet, in opposition to Couture's precepts, felt himself strongly drawn. He is seated on a green bench, with a sombrero on his head, round which is wrapped a handkerchief, wearing a black jacket, grey trousers, and list shoes. He is bawling out a song with great gusto, at the same time strumming on the guitar. The Chanteur espagnol, belonging to the experi- mental period, marks a step forward. It reveals the vigour of the artist's growth and the speedy ripening of his originality. It is much less encumbered with the methods and the reminis- cence of the studio than the Buveur dabsinthe, which was sent to the Salon in 1859. It is painted in a more direct and personal manner. It was, in short, a work in which the parti- I I.K CUITARKRO MANET? EARLY WORKS 15 cular characteristics of the artist were already manifest. When these original qualities, however, came to light for the first time in this picture, they gave rise to none of those violent storms which they were to provoke when fully developed. The picture was painted in a scale of grey and black tones, which did not unduly shock the eye of the beholder. It is true that it was conceived in the realistic manner which was then so much detested ; but, as the unusual costume of the Spanish model gave it almost an air of fantasy, it seemed more or less removed from the reality of everyday life. Thus, while not specially attracting the attention of the public, this work of the young artist was noticed by painters and certain of the critics. The jury awarded it an honourable mention, and The"ophile Gautier, in his notice of it in Le Moniteur Universel, summed it up by saying : " There is a great deal of talent in the painting of this life-sized figure, with its full paste, its daring brushwork, and its truthful colour." As there was no Salon in 1862, it was not until 1863 that Manet could again submit his work, only to be once more rejected. But we will not anticipate. Before reaching the decisive climax in his life, which was to be the real starting- point of his career, we must give a last glance at his early works. Among them, the Musique aux Tuileries, of 1861, calls for remark. The palace of the Tuileries, where the Emperor held his court, was the centre of the luxurious life of the period. A fashionable and well-dressed crowd flocked to the garden, where a band played twice a week. Manet's picture happily recalls to us the manners and costumes of a vanished age. It is the more interesting because of the portraits it gives of himself and of some of his well-known and celebrated contemporaries, such as Baudelaire and Thdophile Gautier. After having painted a fashionable subject in the Musique aux Tuileries, Manet followed it with one of a popular kind, the Clianteuse des rues. This picture was executed in a general tonality of grey, the dominant note being struck by the grey of the dress. The singer stands holding a guitar under her arm, eating cherries. The quality of the painting in itself gives distinction to a subject which otherwise might have seemed ordinary. 16 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS He then painted the Enfant a Fepee,—a little boy walking with a heavy sword in his arms. This low-toned canvas was one of the first to be appreciated. It is now hung in the Metro- politan Museum, New York. Before painting the Enfant a tepee he had already painted another successful picture of a young boy, the Gamin au chien. To the year 1862 belongs the Vieux Musiden, in point of size the most important work of the early period. The picture was painted primarily for the sake of the old musician who occupies the centre of the canvas. He is sitting in the open air, his violin in one hand, his bow in the other, ready to play. The other figures are waiting to listen to him. First, on the left, a little girl is standing in profile, with a baby in her arms. Manet was very fond of this figure; he reproduced her separately in an etching. Two little boys, seen full face, are standing next to her. Then, in the background, the absinthe drinker appears once again. Lastly, on the right, half cut off by the frame, is an oriental, with a turban and a long robe. The group- ing together of such dissimilar characters appears surprising at first, — it is wilfully fanciful. I do not know that Manet had any other design in painting this picture than to place these different characters in it because they pleased him and he wished to pre- serve a record of them. When one endeavours to form some definite idea of Manet during these preliminary years, one envisages a man with an instinctive impulse to strike out a path for himself, and a deter- mination to escape from the dominating aesthetic code which environed him, and from the rigid precepts that were followed in the studios. He is seeking to give his personality free play ; then, with mind awake and eyes opened, he looks out upon the various aspects of the life round about him, and produces studies prolifically. His travels lead him to those of the old masters for whom he feels an affinity, — Franz Hals in Holland, the Venetians in Italy. He studies Velasquez and Goya at first from those of their pictures which are to be found in France. Thus his first works are coloured by a variety of reflections and influences. Some, which he did in his early youth when in r B - EARLY WORKS 17 Centura's studio, or immediately after leaving it, show a ten- dency towards Franz Hals ; others reveal either the influence of the Venetians, or a kind of kinship with the Spanish masters. The traits which he borrows, however, are distinctly superficial ; they do not take such deep root in his work as to give a really dissimilar character to his various pictures. On the contrary, in viewing them chronologically, a well-marked individuality is visible in the very first, and recurs in all the others, undergoing a con- tinual course of development. Above all, one feels oneself in the presence of a man whom nature has gifted in the true sense of the word. The instinct which impelled Manet to be a painter had not deceived him. In yielding to it he had only obeyed the mysterious voice of Nature, which, as it creates certain men to accomplish certain tasks, gives them also the faculty of self-knowledge and the strength to overcome the inevitable obstacles. Everything that Manet did, from the day when he first put colour on canvas, was the work of a painter. His earliest efforts already possessed intensity of life, sound technique, adequate content, splendour of light, — qualities without which no really powerful and lasting work in painting can ever be accomplished. B CHAPTER IV LE DEJEUNER SUR LTIERBE IN 1863 Manet was thirty-one years of age. That endeavour to open out a way for himself, to realise what was in him, which had led him to make his work more and more personal, now issued in the success which he sought for. In Le Dejeimer sur therbe the innovator reached at last his full stature. This picture, painted in the beginning of 18G3, was more important in respect of size than any of his previous productions. He expected it to make its mark. It was submitted to the Salon and was rejected. Thus in 1863, as in 1859, Manet found himself condemned by the jury. But in this year the wholesale rejec- tion affected a greater number of young artists than usual ; the remonstrances which were raised on all sides, and the various influences which the victims were able to set in motion in their favour, led to the intervention of the Emperor. The jury's eliminations were indeed approved by the administration of Fine Arts, but by an order of Napoleon III. the artists who had suffered rejection were allowed to hold a public exhibition of their work. A space was set apart for them in the Palais de 1'Industrie, the same building in which the Salon was held. Thus besides the official exhibition, there was in 1863 a second and exceptional Salon, known as the " Salon des refuse's." This Salon will always remain famous. It included the names of Bracquemont, Cals, Cazin, Chintreuil, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, Jongkind, Jean- Paul Laurens, Legros, Manet, Pissarro, Vollon, Whistler. The dimensions of Le Dejeuner sur Ftierbe 1 were so great that it came to be as much remarked as if it had been in the Salon proper. It 1 In the catalogue of the " Salon des refuses " of 1863, Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe is called Le Bain, from the woman in the background who is standing in the water. But the picture was then everywhere known under the title Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe, which has finally supplanted the other. 18 LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE 19 attracted attention indeed, but in so violent a manner that it provoked a veritable outburst of condemnation. The fact is that in its handling, its methods, its choice of subject, and its principles of {esthetics, it differed fundamentally from everything which tradition had consecrated as right and praiseworthy. With this picture came a revelation of a manner of painting quite outside the current mode, founded on a characteristic and original way of seeing. A new painter had arisen who laid different tones side by side without any transition, a process which nobody had dreamed of practising at that time. He was an iconoclast of accepted methods. He ignored the traditional chiaroscuro, the universally respected convention of a fixed opposi- tion of light and shade, and substituted for it an opposition of different tones. According to the teaching of the studios and the practice of painters, in order to fix the perspectives, to obtain modelling in the masses and to give their just value to certain parts of the picture, it was necessary to use certain combinations of light and shade. Above all it was held that a number of bright tones ought not to be put side by side without gradation, and that the transition from the bright passages to those less bright ought to be graduated in such a way that the shades should soften the abruptness of the contrast, and blend the whole together. But observe where this prevalent technique of the studios had led. Nothing is indeed rarer than an artist who, whatever his means and his methods, is really able to paint light, to put the brilliance of day on canvas ; and so this technique of a constant opposition of shade and make-believe light had led to the production of works which were really all shadow, from which all true light had disappeared. The parts which were supposed to be bright were too feeble to stand out from the surrounding black of the shadows. This effect of gloom prevailed in almost all the pictures of the time. Joyous- ness of colour, brilliance of clear light, the feeling of the open air, the spirit of laughing nature, had disappeared from them. The public had grown accustomed to this lifeless kind of painting. It delighted in it. It asked for nothing different ; it did not know that anything different existed. In the Dejeuner sur Fherbe it was suddenly confronted with a 20 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS different method of painting. Properly speaking, there was no shadow in the picture. The everlasting combination of light and shade, then regarded as immutable, found no place in it. The entire surface was, so to speak, painted brightly ; colour penetrated everywhere. Those parts which other painters would have filled with shadow were painted in tones less bright but always coloured, and of the right value. Thus it came about that the Dejeuner sur Iherbe seemed simply like an enormous blotch of colour. The effect was as of an extravaganza. It shocked the eye. It blinded the public as broad daylight blinds the owl. It seemed to them simply patchwork. The word bariolagc had been used by Paul Mantz, one of the most authoritative critics of the day, who had written about Manet's works in the Gazette des Beaux Arts on the occa- sion of a private exhibition held at Martinet's in the Boulevard des Italiens, some weeks before the opening of the Salon. In this article he condemned them as " pictures whose patchwork of red, blue, yellow and black, was not colour at all, but merely a cari- cature of colour." This judgment exactly expressed the feeling of the public when it gazed on Manet's painting in the Salon des refuse's. It saw in it nothing but a debauch of colour. If the Dejeuner sur Fherbe gave offence by reason of its coloration and handling, it raised, if possible, a still greater storm of indignation because of its choice of subject, and the way in which the figures were treated. At this time there was not only one manner of painting and of observing the traditional rules, which for the public, taking their lead from the artists, was regarded as having any validity ; there was a whole body of aesthetics which alone was admitted in the studios, and sanctioned by public opinion outside. Homage was paid to the " ideal." High art was conceived as appertaining to a certain elevated sphere, which embraced historical and religious painting, and the representation of classical antiquity and mythology. The interest of artists, critics, and public was confined exclusively to this form of art, which was considered pure and dignified. Its condition gave rise to anxiety at each successive Salon ; the important question was whether it was advancing or in decline. The artists who excelled in it, the younger men who cultivated it and gave • i£ Z LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE 21 promise of taking the place of the established masters, were the object of universal attention. Upon them were showered congratu- lations, eulogies, rewards. This grand art had become the object of a national cult. It was the glory of France to perpetuate it. In so doing, she displayed her superiority over those other nations which lagged behind in the path of art, as art was thus under- stood. Thus love of tradition, devotion to what was called the ideal, solicitude for the national honour, united in fostering the veneration of this inherited form of art. Now Manet, in the selection and treatment of his subject, had succeeded in attacking every sentiment which the rest of his countrymen held dear. He had disowned that grand art which was the glory of the nation. On a canvas of dimensions which were reserved exclusively for motives of an " idealised " character, he had dared to paint a purely realistic scene, — a luncheon on the grass. The characters in the picture, depicted life-sized, were lying or sitting under the trees in holiday mood, with a studious avoidance of heroic attitudes ; by their side, in careless confusion, lay a heap of odds and ends, rolls of bread, a basket of fruit, a straw hat, and women's clothes of various colours. And how were these figures clothed ? The two men in the picture were not dressed in any of the costumes of a foreign country or of a bygone age, which, by their dissimilarity from everyday fashion, would at least have allowed the public to recognise some attempt at a picturesque or decorative effect, — such, for instance, as Manet had achieved in his Chanteur espagnol. They simply wore the commonplace, middle-class clothes, of ordinary cut, which any second-rate tailor could turn out. Hence the picture appeared to be painted in a mood of defiance, as a deliberate provocation ; it offered to the public a daring display of that which was then reviled by everybody under the degrading name of vulgar realism. As if there were not already enough grounds for indignation against this picture, the public also professed to see in it an outrage upon decency. In the foreground Manet had placed two clothed men and a nude woman, who was seated in a bending position ; while in the background he had painted a woman bathing. Manet had just emerged from Couture's studio, where the nude formed the basis of instruction ; on every side he saw the nude cultivated 22 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS and honoured as constituting the very essence of high art. Hence he himself had not yet been able to renounce it, and he had there- fore introduced a nude woman into a scene which he intended to represent real life. The whiteness of the flesh against the black of the men's dress provided him with one of those contrasts which he loved, and put a bold, clear note of colour in the middle of the picture. This idea of associating a nude woman with fully-clothed men came to him from his study of the Venetians. His combina- tion was suggested by Giorgione's Concert in the Louvre, where two nude women are seen together in a landscape with two clothed men ; and when his work was attacked, he asked quite sincerely why he was blamed for doing that which nobody thought of condemning in Giorgione. But in the estimation of the public, there was a great gulf between the nude of Manet and that of the Venetians of the Renaissance. The one was " idealised," or at least was thought to be ; the other was pure realism and therefore indecent. This nude woman, therefore, gave additional ground for the censure which was provoked by the Dejeuner sur f/terbe. This painting, moreover, provided an unceasing source of amusement. It became in its way the most celebrated picture of the two Salons. It gave the artist an extraordinary notoriety. Manet became suddenly the painter who was most talked of in Paris. He had believed that this canvas would bring him fame. In that it had succeeded, even more than he had dared to hope ; his name was in everybody's mouth. But the kind of reputation which he had won was not exactly that which he had wished. He had thought that his originality of form and idea, embodied in a large work, would secure not only the attention of the public, but also the recognition of that talent which he knew himself to possess ; he had hoped that he would be recognised as a coming master, that he would be hailed as a pioneer, and that he would enter upon the path of popularity and success. What he achieved was the reputation of a rebel and an eccentric. He was considered to be beyond the pale. Thus was established between himself and the public a complete alienation, an unending feud, which was to continue throughout the whole of his life. CHAPTER V THE OLYMPIA IN 1864 Manet sent to the Salon two pictures, which were both accepted, Anges au tombeau du Christ and Episode dun combat de taureaux. They were more or less in the same manner as his previous work, and therefore gave rise to no special comment. They did not cause the public to reconsider the unfavourable verdict which it had passed on the painter of the Dejeuner sur Dierbe of the year before. The next year he also offered two pictures — the Ohjmpia and Jems insulte par les soldats. The Olympia had been painted in 1863, just after, and as a kind of complement to the Dejeuner sur riierbe. He had put into it the best of his now ripening personality, and he expected that it would make another sensa- tion. The Emperor had shown his disapproval of the stringent rejections of 1863 .in allowing those artists whose work had been rejected to hold an exhibition in close proximity to the Salon itself. The jury accordingly now relaxed its severity, and accepted pictures which it would formerly have condemned. This explains how Manet, who had been denied admission to the Salons of 1859 and 1863, succeeded in getting his Olympia and Jesus insulte par les soldats accepted in 1865, although in these works his individuality showed itself in a still more pro- nounced form. These two pictures in the Salon at once inflamed the public. The storm of laughter and abuse which the Dejeuner sur fherbe had provoked burst forth afresh with increasing vehemence. The peculiarities of Manet's work, which had been received with so much disfavour, had in 1863 taken the world by surprise. The public might then have thought it possible that they were after 23 24 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS all only the deliberate exaggerations of a tyro who wished to achieve notoriety. But now, two years later, here was the same Manet with the same characteristics, thrusting the same methods into the face of the public, and this in the very citadel of re- spectability, the official Salon. The unfamiliar features which had horrified everybody in the Dejeuner sur Iherbe reappeared still more accentuated in the Olympia. This picture was painted in a luminous note throughout. It burst with an almost painful shock upon eyes that were habituated to the deadness and gloom of the picture of the period. The effect of the different planes was obtained without the use of shadow to give them prominence or distance, light on light ; the boldest colours were juxtaposed without any half-tones or gradations. Certainly no other artist in the Salon painted in this way ; and as nobody supposed that a mere beginner who differed from everybody else, including all the revered and acknow- ledged masters, could be right and they wrong, Manet was condemned categorically. Everybody agreed in branding him as a rebel, unbalanced, uncultured, uninstructed. The connois- seurs, or those who aspired to be such, could not find terms forcible enough to express the contempt which they felt for his methods. Such was the opinion as regards the form ; as regards the matter it was no less severe. Olympia, who formed the subject of the picture, was painted nude, lying upon a bed, with one arm resting on a cushion. Beneath her is spread a kind of Indian shawl of a yellow tinge, slightly figured with flowers. Behind the bed a negress is bringing her mistress a large bouquet, the brilliant tones of which are juxtaposed with the utmost daring. The whole is completed by a black cat, with arched back, phiced on the bed at the side of the negress. Here then was a painting of the nude as it is in real life, conceived and executed in the thoroughly modern manner which Manet had definitely adopted ; but it was also a treatment of the nude which the public regarded as indecent, and as destructive of every respected and respectable tradition of high art. If the Dejeuner sur Iherbe, in offending against the high art of tradition, had already ranged everybody THE OLYMPIA 25 against him, the Olympia provoked still greater indignation, be- cause it repeated the offence. Manet aggravated it by showing himself lacking in respect for that which everybody was bent on preserving in its integrity, as at once the essence and the glory of high art, — the representation of the nude in its most refined and idealised form. The proper function of the nude, as it was then conceived, was to assist in the rendering of fable, mythology, and ancient history. The result was the production of pictures of a laborious kind. When women formed the subject of a picture, the apostles of this school were more especially careful to abstain from study- ing from real life, lest they might diverge from those forms which had been handed down through an uninterrupted succession of imitators from the Italian renaissance. It must be remembered that at this time pictures in what was called the third manner of Raphael and the works of Guido Reni and the Carraccios occupied the chief place in the galleries, and were regarded as the supreme achievement of Italian art at its zenith. When such ideas were held with regard to the school that had formed the starting-point of that traditional art on which the nation prided itself, it followed that the aesthetic sense was satisfied by any imitation or repetition of the conventional models. An essential point which was never forgotten was always to borrow the title of a picture from mythological nomenclature, and the number of Venuses, nymphs, Greek and Roman divinities painted in France during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century is beyond calculation. Into this world of conventionalised goddesses, Manet pre- sumed to introduce a modern Parisienne, an Olympia lying on a bed. Moreover, he made no attempt to modify the force of the shock which his work naturally created ; on the contrary, he chose his model from a type as far removed as possible from that which was consecrated by tradition. In face of this picture, one feels that in his efforts towards self-realisation he had con- ceived such a disgust of the prevailing stereotyped forms that he had deliberately gone to the other extreme. The figure of Olympia is that of a spare young woman, with somewhat bony 26 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS limbs and angular shoulders. To-day she appears as chaste as any of the nymphs of mythology ; her spare unconventional body pleases by its modern flavour; the head is drawn with the precision of a Holbein. But in 1865 nobody was in a position to judge the work or to appreciate all that the artist had put into it. Olympia simply gave the impression of a creature sprung nobody knew whence, intruding upon a company of goddesses. The public rose up in protest against the interloper, and the unhappy woman became the object of as much derision as the painter who brought her into being. But what is so astonishing that we should not believe it if the truth were not beyond question, is the fact that a purely accidental feature, due to a whim of the artist, the black cat, was singled out as the object of a special attack, and helped to prejudice the picture. Manet had a fondness for cats, and had fancifully intro- duced this one into his picture for the sake of its pictorial effect, and also in order to have a bold black note to enhance by contrast the prevalent tones of white and pink. He painted cats in several of his pictures : in his Jeune femme couchee en costume espagtiol, where a small grey cat is playing on the floor with an orange, and again in the Dejeuner of the 1869 Salon, where a black cat is curled up at the feet of the servant carrying the coffee-pot. Also for an advertisement for Champfleury's book of Cats he made a body-colour drawing and a lithograph, in which a black and a white cat are frolicking on the roofs. The cat in the Olympia might surely then have been accepted as one of those whims, which artists not infrequently indulge in. But the public was so irritated by everything which Manet did, that it could forgive him nothing. One wonders what would have become of all those pictures, from the Renaissance onwards, into which artists have introduced strik- ing or fantastic details if the princes, who were in former times the sole patrons of art, had shown the same lack of intelligence as the Parisians of 1865. I have never been able to reflect on the indignation aroused by the cat in the Olympia without recalling the Coronation of Marie de Mcdicis. In that picture Rubens took a very different liberty. He put two large hounds in the front of the picture, against the THE OLYMPIA '27 high altar of the cathedral where bishops and cardinals are offici- ating. Henry IV., only just visible, is relegated to a gallery in the background, while the two animals, as though they were of principal importance, lord it in the foreground. I imagine that these dogs belonged to Henry himself, and that he had them painted because he was fond of them. Although it seemed right to a king of France to introduce dogs into a cathedral at the queen's coronation, to the Parisians, on the other hand, it seemed very wrong to place a cat on a woman's bed. The black cat of the Olympia soon became the laughing-stock of the town. Cari- cature seized upon it, and its arched back and long tail continued for some time to furnish a subject for jokes and jeers. Manet's two pictures had the same sort of violent fascination for the visitors to the Salon that a red rag has for a bull, or a mirror for larks. Everybody went to see them. There was always a crowd, or rather a mob, in front of them. It was very different from the ordinary crowd of complacent spectators, who usually look with more or less interest at those pictures which possess any claim to attention. They gave audible expression to their disgust, and were constrained to impart their feelings of anger to one another, — just as it sometimes happens that a crowd collects in public places at moments of great excitement and gives vociferous vent to its emotions. Not a word of approval was heard or even of simple tolerance. The hostility was general. Some laughed, shrugged their shoulders, and regarded the subject only with a contemptuous disdain ; but others waxed indignant, gesticu- lated, and would have liked to tear the canvases to pieces. It was necessary to protect the two pictures ; special custodians were told off to guard them. Manet was experiencing the common fate of those independent painters who, earlier in the century, had broken with tradition and routine. Like himself, all the other masters had to submit to slights, jeers, abuse. Thus, at the beginning of the century, Ingres was scorned because he was suspected of being under the influence of the then despised Italian primitives. Later, Delacroix, who was said to have abandoned himself to a debauch of colour, and to have violated all the laws of drawing, was covered with 28 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS abuse. Then, for a long time, two great landscape painters, Itousseau and Corot, who introduced novel formulas, were held up to laughter. Finally, Courbet, who looked for the motives of his pictures in the life around him, was dragged in the mud and accused of absolute ugliness. Last of all came Manet, upon whom the opposition and attacks, which the others collectively had had to sustain, seemed to be concentrated with increased violence. A great change had in fact taken place in the years preceding the advent of Manet. The public that interested itself in art, and set up to be a judge of painters, had grown enormously. Hitherto painting had addressed itself exclusively to a narrow circle com- posed of artists, men of letters, connoisseurs, and society people. The Salons were originally held only at infrequent intervals, and in confined spaces, such as the Salon carre of the Louvre ; compara- tively few pictures were exhibited, and the number of visitors was not great. Under these conditions, the arrival of a painter with new ideas made a stir only in a quite small world ; the conflicts between the different schools did not touch the large outside public directly, but only at second hand, like a distant echo. But from 1863 onwards, the Salons were held annually ; the immense palace built for the universal Exhibition in 1 855 in the Champs-Elyse'es was set apart for them ; the number of works exhibited increased enor- mously. Hence the larger public, the whole outside world in fact, came into direct contact with artists, and began to sit in judgment on them. Now the people as a whole, in its new capacity of art critic, showed itself more attached to convention and tradition, more hostile to novelty, less capable of correcting former errors of judgment, than the limited world which had hitherto been the sole arbiter on matters of art. And Manet, the first great painter of original ideas, who had appeared after the crowds had begun to flock to the Salons, had to face a contemptuous and abusive opposition, more lasting and violent than was known to any of his forerunners in the pioneer work of art. The protests which were called forth by the Olympia and the Jesus insulte, joined to the uproar already provoked by the Dejeuner sur therbe, gave Manet a greater notoriety than any painter had possessed before. Owing to the persistent preoccupa- THE OLYMPIA 29 tion of caricature in all its forms, and of papers of every shade of opinion, with him and his work, his fame rapidly spread everywhere. It was no exaggeration when Degas said that he was as well known as Garibaldi. When he went out into the street, people turned round to look at him. When he went into any public place a general murmur went round, and he was pointed out as though he had been some curious beast. It might at first have been gratify- ing to a new painter to find himself the object of general remark, but the marked form which the attention of the public had taken soon destroyed any possible satisfaction which might otherwise have been derived from it. The distinction of being so promi- nently in the public gaze was due simply to the fact that he was regarded as a madman, a barbarian who committed outrages in the domain of art and trampled under foot the traditions which were the glorious heritage of the nation. Nobody condescended to examine his work with a view to discovering his intention ; none of those in authority gave him any credit for his genius as an innovator. The striking reputation which he had acquired only served to brand him as a pariah. When the Salon was closed in the month of August, in order to secure a brief respite from persecution, he carried out his long matured project of a visit to Madrid. It was there that I made his acquaintance. The manner of our meeting was so remarkable and so typical of his impulsive character that I feel bound to relate the incident here. I was returning from Portugal, through which I had travelled partly on horseback, and had arrived that very morning from Badajoz, after having been in the diligence for forty hours. A new hotel had just been opened in Madrid, in the Puerta del Sol, on the model of the large European hotels, — a thing hitherto unknown in Spain. I arrived worn out with fatigue and literally famishing of hunger. The new hotel where I had put up appeared to me a veritable palace of delight. The lunch to which I had sat down seemed like a feast of Lucullus. I ate with a sensation of luxury. The dining hall was empty except for a gentleman who was sitting some distance away at the same long table as myself. He, how- ever, found the cuisine execrable. Every other minute he ordered 30 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS some new dish, which immediately afterwards he angrily rejected as inedible. Each time that he sent the waiter away, I on the contrary called him back, and with ravenous appetite partook of all the dishes indifferently. Meanwhile I had paid no attention to my neighbour who was so difficult to please. When, however, I again asked the waiter to bring me a dish which he had refused, he suddenly got up, came near to where I was sitting and exclaimed angrily, " Now, sir, you are doing this simply to insult me, to make a fool of me, — pretending to relish this disgusting cooking and calling back the waiter every time that I send him away ! " The profound astonishment that I displayed at this unexpected attack immediately convinced him that he must have made a mistake as to the motive of my behaviour, for he added in a milder tone, " You recognise me ; of course, you know who I am ? " Still more astonished, I replied, " I don't know who you are. How should I recognise you ? I have just arrived from Portugal. I nearly perished of hunger there, and the cuisine of this hotel seems to me to be really excellent." " Ah, you have come from Portugal," he said, " well, I've just come from Paris." This at once explained our divergence of opinion as to the cooking. Realising the humour of the situation, my friend began to laugh at his fit of anger, and then made his apologies. We drew our chairs nearer to one another and finished our lunch together. Afterwards he told me his name. He confessed that he had supposed that I was some one who had recognised him and wished to play a vulgar joke upon him. The idea that the persecution which he thought he had escaped by leaving Paris was about to begin again in Madrid had at once exasperated him. The acquaint- ance thus begun rapidly kindled into intimacy. We explored Madrid together. Naturally we spent a considerable time every day before the paintings of Velasquez in the Prado. At this time Madrid preserved its old picturesque appearance. There was still a number of cafe's in the old houses of the Calle di Sevilla, which formed a general rendezvous for people connected with bull- fighting, toreros, afficionados, and for dancers. Large awnings were stretched across the street from the upper storeys of the houses, giving it an agreeable shade and comparative coolness in the after- THE OLYMPIA 81 noon. The Calle di Sevilla with its picturesque life became our favourite haunt. We saw several bull-fights, — Manet made sketches of them, which he used later for his paintings. We also went to Toledo to see the Cathedral and Greco's pictures. There is no need to tell how everything that Manet saw in Spain, which had haunted his dreams for so long, fulfilled his utmost ex- pectations. One thing, however, spoilt his pleasure, — the difficulty which he had experienced from the first, of accommodating himself to the Spanish mode of living. He could not fall in with it. He almost gave up eating. He felt an overpowering repugnance to the odour of the dishes that were set before him. He was in fact a Parisian who could find no comfort out of Paris. At the end of ten days, really starved and ill, he was obliged to return. We travelled back together. At this period travellers were compelled to show their passports. When we produced ours at the station at Hendaye, the official who examined them stared at Manet with astonishment. He sent for his wife and family in order that they might see him too. The other passengers, having soon learnt who he was, began to stare as well. As they had heard of him as a painter of artistic monstrosities, they were evidently greatly astonished to find him a perfectly polite and well-behaved man of the world. Once more back in Paris, he returned to his work. He had now left his first studio in the Rue Lavoisier, and after temporarily occupying another in the Rue de la Victoire, he finally took one, which he retained for some years, in the Rue Guyot, in Les Batig- nolles, behind the Pare Monceau. In 1863 he had married Mile. Suzanne Leenhoff, a Dutch lady born at Delft. She belonged to a family devoted to art. One of her brothers, Ferdinand LeenhofF, was a sculptor and engraver. She herself was a pianist, and although she played only amongst friends, she devoted herself to music with great assiduity. In her Manet found a woman of artistic taste, capable of understanding him and of giving him that strengthening help and encouragement which enabled him better to withstand the attacks from outside. His father had died in 1862, leaving his fortune to be divided among his three sons, enough to support them in comfort. Thus 32 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Manet found himself in a privileged position among artists. He was able to live without the necessity of selling his pictures, which nobody in these early days would have bought at any price, and he could set aside a sufficient sum to provide for the necessary expenses of a studio and models. Leaving the Boulevard des Batignolles, Manet and his wife came to live with his mother in the Rue de Saint-Pe"tersbourg. The flat was furnished with the family furniture of the stiff formal style that had been fashionable in the reign of Louis Philippe. There was no display of bibelots or objects of virtu ; only two or three pictures hung on the walls, — the portraits of his father and mother which Manet had painted, and a portrait of himself by Fantin-Latour. His mother possessed the grace and distinc- tion of manner of a woman who had moved much in society. His brothers Eugene and Gustave were constant visitors. Since the death of their father, their chief counsellor and guide had been M. de Jouy, an advocate held in high esteem at the Palais de Justice. Manet painted his portrait in 1879. Manet's appear- ance never clashed with his surroundings. Nothing about him particularly betrayed the artist. He was scrupulously correct in his dress ; indeed it was in some measure owing to his example that artists came to exchange the fantastic manner which they had formerly affected for the correctness of dress and bearing of the man of the world. Nothing was more remarkable than the contrast which existed between Manet's social position and his role of revolutionary artist and iconoclast of the venerated traditional aesthetic. On the one hand was the Manet against whom everybody was up in arms, the butt of caricature and witticism, pursued by the mob as a kind of outcast, regarded as a barbarian, the exponent of a brutal and vulgar realism ; on the other was the Manet who came of a distinguished family, who lived soberly with his wife and mother, and preserved throughout his life the polished manners of the class to which by birth he belonged. CHAPTER VI THE PRIVATE EXHIBITION OF 1867 IN 1866 Manet submitted two pictures to the Salon, the Fifre and the Acteur tragique. The jury rejected both. This refusal was the outcome of the indignation produced by the works exhibited in the previous year. In establishing the Salon des refuse's, the Emperor had shown his disapproval of the excessive harshness of the jury in 1863. Still smarting under this rebuff and anxious to appear accommodating, they had in 1865 accepted the Olympia and the Jesus insulte ; but now, encouraged by the unanimity of the hostile feeling against Manet, they re- turned to their former severity. Hence they rejected, blindfold as it were, the two works submitted to them. They were in fact works which an unbiassed jury, recognising qualities of workman- ship of the highest order, must necessarily have accepted, especially as the selection and arrangement of the subjects offered no very startling novelty as a handle for criticism. The subjects were two men standing against neutral backgrounds. The Fifre is the portrait of a soldier, a mere youth, playing on a fife. He is alive ; his eyes sparkle. He is painted in full light. The red trousers, the white belt, the yellow stripes of his cap, the blue ground of his jacket, all these juxtaposed without shade or transition, present an astonishingly harmonious whole. Only a man exceptionally gifted could have created with such simple means a work of such pictorial value. But to the eye of the average painter of the time, who, like the public, was accustomed to opaque shadows and dead tones, this magnificent piece of painting was an offence. It appeared shrill and violent. The Acteur tragique, rightly so called, stands sombre and stern, dressed all in black. The actor was Rouviere in the part c 34 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS of Hamlet. Here there was no juxtaposition of different colours, as in the Fifre ; the general black tone of the clothes, harmonising with the grey of the background, ought to have made the picture acceptable to people whose eyes were pleased with blended and harmonious colouring. But in order to obtain his tragic effect, Manet had painted the features with a bold brush and powerful touches, and it is possible that the jury seized upon this supposed coarseness of style as a pretext for condemning the picture. Thus Manet saw the jury resume that attitude of hostile pre- judice against him which had led to the lack of recognition in his early days when he was struggling to express himself. Once again he suffered ostracism. Moreover, he could not expect to find the slightest sympathy outside. With the whole public in a state of indignation against him on account of the Dejeuner sur Vherbe and the Olympia, he found himself rebuffed everywhere. The influ- ential artists, the critics, the connoisseurs, the whole of the press, poured their wrath upon him. He had hoped to achieve fame by the production of works into which he had put the whole force of his originality ; fame he had indeed achieved — the fame of infamy. He had fallen into an abyss of denunciation. Moreover, he had lost his first and only champion, Baudelaire, who now with darkened mind had entered an asylum. Thus he now found himself alone and to all appearances finally deserted. It was precisely now, however, that the originality and fresh- ness of his genius began here and there to meet with a response. It was impossible that his own impelling need for emancipation should be an isolated fact ; it was necessarily imperative in others, and the extraordinary commotion which had given him notoriety naturally attracted these others to him. All new modes, whether of thought, of belief, of social or artistic life, have their difficult beginnings in isolated individuals or in small groups, and thence extend gradually outwards. This obscure process of germination was at work in the new aesthetic which he had inaugurated. At the very time when all the world seemed to be steeled against him, he had awakened a feeling of sympathy among a number of young men who gathered round him as militant champions, disciples, and enthusiastic admirers. THE PRIVATE EXHIBITION OF 1867 35 There were then in Paris two young men, friends of long standing, — Cezanne and Zola. Cezanne, following his natural inclination, had set up as a painter ; Zola had already produced brilliant work in literature. Both despised the beaten track. With the instinctive impulse of youth to rally to the defence of youth, they showed a warm sympathy for Manet, whose work had early come to their notice, in his resistance to a fierce opposition. Their sympathy necessarily called for action. It led the painter to adopt after a certain time the technique which Manet had initiated, and Ce'zanne, whose early work showed first the romantic influence of Delacroix and then the realistic influence of Courbet, finally gave himself up definitely to a mode of painting characterised by bright tones, full light and the open air. And it led Zola, the writer, to champion the cause of the unpopular innovator with his pen. M. de Villemessant was then editor of L'Evenement. Before the creation of the daily Figaro, it was the leading daily paper, literary in character and retaining a staff of writers of broad and varied views. It was very popular on the boulevards and among literary, theatrical, and society people. Zola had been com- missioned by M. de Villemessant, who was on the look-out for new writers, to write an account of the Salon of 1866. The ten- dency of his criticism and the brilliance of his style at once gained him distinction. His articles were widely read. In that of the 4th of May the public read with astonishment the first sketch of a theory of originality in art, which aimed at nothing less than assigning to Manet the rank of a master. This article was only a beginning. On the 7th a second appeared, more elabo- rated and written in the author's best style ; it was devoted to an enthusiastic eulogy of Manet and his works. This artist, whom the Salon that year had rejected, Zola declared to be a great painter, predicted that some day his pictures would find a place in the Louvre, and asserted his infinite superiority to the painters of the traditional school, then at the summit of their fame and popularity. The newspaper-reading public was as much incensed by Zola's article as the picture-gazing public had been by Manet's paintings. It was positively incredible that a literary paper, the organ of the 36 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS cultured classes, should print a eulogy of the despised Manet in which those barbarous, painfully realistic productions, which had shocked every man of taste and set the whole town laughing, were characterised as masterpieces! Indignant protests were raised on all sides. M. de Villemessant was told that if he did not abandon his art critic, his readers would very soon abandon his paper. At first he adopted a middle course, and commissioned a second art critic to eulogise those painters whom the first had attacked ; but this half-measure did not prove sufficient. There was a demand that Zola should be silenced altogether, and he himself, satisfied with the blow which he had struck, and refusing to make any concessions, abruptly ended his Salon articles and left the paper. His departure was welcomed as the just reparation of an unjustifiable act. His action in espousing Manet's cause had been absolutely disinterested, for hitherto he had never met him. He had been moved by a genuine admiration ; his temperamental courage and forcefulness had impelled him to break with the received opinion and to take the public, as it were, by the throat. But his action was wilfully misinterpreted; he was accused of the lowest and most unworthy motives, and all the reward that he got for his courage was the reputation of a man who lacked both honesty and a sense of respect for what ought to be respected. Some time after, M. Arsene Houssaye, who was looking about for sensational articles for a literary and artistic review, La Revue du XIXs sicck, which he edited, asked Zola to write a special study of Manet. This appeared in the number for January 1867. This time Zola forbore delivering those attacks on the traditional painters which had so greatly provoked the anger of the readers of the articles in L'Evenement, and devoted himself exclusively to Manet. To-day his study appears to contain only the simplest truths. Only irreconcilable conservatives, still devoted to obsolete formulas, could object to the judgment which he delivered; but upon the ears of contemporaries they fell like paradoxes. He gave special attention to the Otympia, praising it unstintedly. This alone was enough to convict him LA CHANTKUSK DES RUKS THE PRIVATE EXHIBITION OF 1867 37 of insincerity; no one supposed that he really believed a word of what he wrote. Olympia and her black cat had been so roundly denounced that it appeared positively monstrous to say a word in their defence. Not content with the publicity which his articles had received in L'Evenement and La Revue /ges, Jcnnc fcinrne cone/tec en costume espagnol, Courses, etc. He also often used water-colour to paint open-air studies and to satisfy himself of the correctness of certain landscape effects. But as his career advanced, he came to use water-colour only as an accessory, and began to work in a new medium, pastel. His first pastel dates back to 1874. It was a portrait of his wife lying on a couch, executed in a scale of blue-grey tones. From this time onwards he continued to work in pastel, using it especially for his portraits of women. His productions in this medium were particularly numerous towards the end of his life, after he had been stricken by ataxy. Those works that neces- sitated a great expense of energy first became difficult for him, and then impossible ; in pastel, however, he found a comparatively easy method, and he was also entertained by the pleasant society of the women who came and sat for him. Thus in the latter years of his life he painted a great number of portraits of women, belonging to different social circles : Mme. Zola, Mme. du Paty, Mme. Guillemet, Mile. Lemaire, Mile. Lemonnier, Mile. Eva Gonzales, Mme. Me>y Laurent, Mme. Martin, Mile. Marie Colombier. Some of the most characteristic portraits have remained anonymous, or were only given fancy titles, such as PC mine au carlin, Femme voilee, Femme a la fourrure, La Viennoise, Sur le bane. In the end he acquired a great taste for pastel. He found that it admitted at the same time of the render- ing of light, the juxtaposition of bright colours, and the portrayal of diversified types. His portraits in pastel, taken as a whole, give a general representation of woman as she appeared in the latter half of the nineteenth century ; in addition, they present the most delicate and daring combinations of colour. Besides his portraits of women he also did some portraits of men in pastel. Some of the heads are full of character. Among others are those of Constantin Guys, the art correspondent of the Illustrated London News during the Crimean War, Cabaner the musician, and George Moore the novelist. CHAPTER XI LAST YEARS IN 1879 Manet left his studio in the Rue de Saint-Pe"tersbourg, and took the one in the Rue d' Amsterdam, which he was to occupy till his death. In 1880 he sent two pictures to the Salon, Chez le Pere Lathuille, painted in the open air, and Portrait de M. Antonin Proust, a studio picture. The former of these had been painted in the garden of Pere Lathuille's, an old and famous restaurant in the Avenue de Clichy, where Manet, when he lived in the Rue de Saint-Petersbourg, occasionally used to lunch. The idea occurred to him of utilising the peaceful garden for one of his open-air pictures. The picture represents a love scene — a youth and a woman somewhat older than himself, sitting at a table, where they are finishing their dejeuner. The youth is urging his suit with considerable warmth of passion, while the woman assumes an affected air of reserve in order to captivate him more surely. Manet had often been blamed for painting his figures in attitudes which were said to be unintelligible because they suggested no very definite action. That charge could not be brought against him here, for the lovers at Pere Lathuille's play their parts with such a will that the content of the scene is obvious at the first glance. Manet always endeavoured to keep his art in close touch with life, and in the infinite variety of life he found a similar variety of subject. Some of his scenes simply present a number of un- occupied people grouped together as one sees them in real life ; others are marked by some striking or characteristic action. For the rest, the effect in this particular case was obtained by precise but very simple means. All the passion of the young man, who is seen full face, is frankly expressed in the animation of his features ; 92 LAST YEARS 93 while the averted and half-hidden profile of the woman help to suggest her pretended air of propriety and reserve. Chez Ic Pcre Ltit/tuillc is perhaps of all Manet's pictures the one which best displays the essential characteristics of open-air painting. Light floods the whole of the picture. The perspective and the modelling are obtained without the opposition and contrast of light and shadow. Those parts which are intended to be in shadow are themselves so luminous and full of colour, that they scarcely differ from those upon which the light falls directly. The Portrait de M. Antoniu Proust was a studio picture, painted in sober tones. It represents a man standing up, wearing a frock-coat and tall hat, with one hand resting on a cane, the other placed on the hip. It is a very strong piece of work. The effect of the reality and the solidity of the body underneath the coat is admirably given. Manet had been intimate with M. Proust from his college days, and in his portrait he interpreted the whole of his friend's character. While giving him the gravity of the elderly politician, he also succeeded in expressing the easy and assured bearing of the man of the world, and even suggested some- thing of the dash and elegance of his lost youth. In 1881 Manet sent again to the Salon one open-air and one studio picture, Portrait de M. Pertuiset, le chasseur de lions, and Portrait de M. Henri Rochefort. The open-air picture, in which Pertuiset figured, was one of a special order. Owing to their practice of always working face to face with nature, the Impressionists had learned to catch all its multitudinous aspects, and thus recorded on their canvases certain unsuspected effects. For instance, they perceived that in winter sunshine the shadows thrown upon the snow appear to be blue, and they painted them blue accordingly. They had also discovered that in summer the light under the trees gives the ground a violet tinge, and therefore in painting woods they made the ground violet. Renoir in particular had painted a ball at Montmartre, Moulin de la galette, and a picture of a swing, Balanfoire, in which the figures underneath sunlit trees are dappled with splashes of light, and the whole canvas is conceived in a general violet tone. The novelty of blue and violet shadows had produced a great 94 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS outcry Nobody seriously inquired whether in bright sunlight the shadows on the snow and under the trees might not actually possess the colours which the Impressionists had given them. The fact such effects had never been seen in pictures before was sufficient t lead the conservative prejudices of the beholders to reject with contempt. Manet, however, was greatly interested in all experiments of his Impressionist friends, and was struck by their daring method of painting coloured shadows in the open air. studied particularly the reflections of sunlight under foliage, and, finding that the shadows actually assume colours in which viole predominates, he became anxious himself to execute a picture these lines. He painted Pertuiset in the summer of 1880, under the trees of the Elysee des Beaux- Arts, Boulevard de Chchy. broken up in filtering through the trees, throws a general shadow of violet tone on the ground and over the figure. Pertuiset was a famous hunter, renowned for having shot several lions. Manet conceived the idea of making him take up a kneeling attitude, gun in hand, as if on the alert for his prey. Behind him he put a lion's skin, not with the intention, as people supposed, ot representing Pertuiset as just having shot a lion, but in order to break up the uniform tone of the ground with a strong note colour. Realism was not intended in the picture, wished actually to represent a lion-hunt, Manet's system of only painting things that he had seen for himself would have compelled him to transport himself and his model to Algiers or some place where lions were really to be found; whereas he was content paint the lion-hunter in the setting of a Parisian garden. His pictures in the Salon of 1881 had on the whole no more success than those in the preceding Salons. The general violet tone, the lion's skin, the pose of the hunter, were regarded whimsicalities of the artist, and gave rise to the usual laughter However, these pictures had one remarkable result ; they obtame( an official award— a medal from the jury. This grant of a medal was in itself a reward of little value, since it was bestowed every year on the most indifferent painters, but under the special cir- cumstances it became a notable event. That Manet, the painter LAST YEARS 95 who had so often been refused at the Salons, who had been care- fully excluded from the Expositions Universelles, who had been censured for setting up a pernicious example, should suddenly have been singled out for official honours, was sufficiently remark- able ; but the event was more significant in indicating that some- where or other a great revolution of opinion had taken place. Such was in truth the case ; and this insignificant medal announced the fact that those new aspirations, so long kept in check, had at last prevailed and achieved a very striking recognition. The award of the medal came about in this way. The Salon, since its creation by Colbert under Louis XI V., had been a state institution, under the control of the government. Its monopoly gave it an immense prestige. By its constitution supreme power was vested in the hands of the jury. It not only decided which pictures should be accepted and which rejected, but it also decreed the official awards. The grant of a medal by the jury raised the recipient to the position of " Hors Concours " ; that is to say, his works were henceforth withdrawn from the examination of the jury and were admitted without any possibility of refusal to all the exhibitions. Under the Empire and at the beginning of the Third Republic the jury was partly nominated by the administra- tion of Fine Arts, partly elected by those artists who had received official awards. By its composition, therefore, the jury was formed entirely of men who were devoted to tradition. Its invariable hostility to men of independent views and innovating temper provoked a spirit of revolt against the composition of the jury, against its partial manner of distributing awards, and against the whole system of a hierarchical gradation of artists. In 1881 the state abandoned its traditional authority over the Salon. The first result of this change was to eliminate from the juries those members nominated by the administration of Fine Arts. But the discontent with the action of juries was so great that the artists wished to abolish also the restricted suffrage by which the elected members of the jury were chosen. Accordingly by the new regulations of 18.81, the jury was henceforth to be composed solely of members elected by the suffrage of all the exhibitors without distinction. The jury of the Salon of 1881, elected on 96 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS this basis, was therefore of an entirely different character from any that had gone before. The younger and more independent men, who had hitherto scarcely ever been represented, now found them- selves in strong force, and the jury, instead of belonging wholly to the partisans of tradition as before, was divided into two parties of nearly equal strength. The independent section wished at once to make a trial of their strength and to mark in the most decisive manner their rupture with the old tradition. The most emphatic way in which they could accomplish this was to include Manet among the artists to receive awards, and therefore they decided to give him the medal. In making its awards, it was the custom for the jury first to pass through the galleries, and in front of the pictures themselves to draw up a preliminary list of names ; from these the artists to receive distinction were afterwards chosen by a formal vote. When the jury arrived in front of the Portrait de Pertuiset, a heated discussion took place between those members who wished to in- clude it among the pictures qualified for a medal and those who were determined to exclude it. In the course of the discussion, Cabanel, the President of the Jury, who belonged to the party of tradition but was otherwise a man of liberal and impartial views, went so far as to say, " Gentlemen, there are not, perhaps, four among us here who could paint a head like that." In this remark he showed his sound judgment, for Manet had taken special pains to make the head stand out, and to give it the impression of fitting solidly into the hat. At the preliminary selection a majority of votes was not required — about a third sufficed — and the Portrait de Pertuiset received more than the necessary number. When the time for the final decision arrived, the partisans of Manet found that they were one or two votes short of the absolute majority which was now indispensable. The opposition remained implac- able ; but at the last moment Gervex persuaded Vollon and De Neuville, who until then had been antagonistic, to give their votes to Manet, and so secured the necessary preponderance in his favour. The members who voted for the medal were seventeen in number : Bin, Cazin, Carolus-Duran, Duez, Feyen-Perrin, Gervex, Guil- laumet, Henner, Lalanne, Lansyer, Lavieille, Em. Levy, de LAST YEARS 97 Neuville, Roll, Vollon, Vuillefroy. In spite of his relative praise, Cabanel sided with his friends of the traditional school and voted against the award. The honour conferred upon Manet was in the nature of a protest against the former decisions of the juries, and was regarded as such by the world at large. Everybody was definitively agreed that Manet's talent and service to art deserved to be recognised. In spite of the scornful attitude of the public, the press, and the old traditional school of painters, those who knew how to read the signs of the times had to admit that his influence upon the younger artists was in reality immense. This influence, it is true, was no longer of that immediate kind which he had exercised upon the band of daring spirits who developed into the Impressionists. But if its effect was not so pronounced, it was felt by the most gifted men of the new generation. It was known for instance that Bastien-Lepage, one of the most esteemed of the younger artists, had abandoned traditional art after having seen Manet's works, and had begun to paint modern life. It was clear that the same in- fluence was producing in various ways a similar evolution in the work of others of the younger school ; their painting was becoming continually more luminous and more deeply rooted in actual life. To men capable of forming a comprehensive judgment, it was obvious that the whole trend of painting was in the direction of the movement inaugurated by Manet. If the Salon of 1861, in which he made his first appearance, and the Salon of 1881 could have been placed side by side, and seen simultaneously, everybody would have realised with amazement the vast change which had taken place. They would have seen that the traditional method of combining light and shade according to a precise formula, which had first been repudiated by Manet, was now more or less com- pletely abandoned by the younger men who had adopted Manet's system of painting in luminous tones. They would have seen that realism, the reflection of the living world, which had at first been viewed with a kind of horror, originating with him, had now become the general rule. They would have seen that the feigned high art of tradition, the painting of history, mythology, and the so-called idealised nude, was now almost entirely ignored, and was G 98 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS practised only by a few veterans, faithful to the ways of their youth. In twenty years, methods, subjects, the whole system of {esthetics had been revolutionised. It is true that such wide-spreading movements are not broughl about solely by the individual action of a single man ; they arise out of the urgent needs of a new age. But however inevitable the movement may now appear, Manet was its initiator he who discovered the unexplored country, who embarked upon the hazardous journey, without a thought of turning back, painters who held fast to tradition and abhorred innovation had at once, and rightly, recognised him as their enemy ; they did all in their power to stifle and discredit him. Thus, now that the power and influence of the juries had passed into the hands of the young men whose liberation from time-worn methods was due to the recent changes, it was only a simple act of justice on their part to revoke the sentence of condemnation which their predecessors had pronounced upon Manet. When an artist had attained the rank of Hors Gmcows, it was the rule for the Government to confer on him the decoration of the Legion of Honour. Manet's case, however, was excep- tional; he was still the subject of such contentious disputes, that his decoration appeared an audacious proceeding, and once more provoked the bitter indignation of the party of tradition. When M. Grevy, the President of the Republic, read Manet's name in the list of those whom M. Antonin Proust, Minister of Art, proposed to decorate, he exclaimed: "Ah, Manet— no ! But Gambetta, the Prime Minister, with whom M. Proust had arrived at an understanding, insisted authoritatively, and neither the President nor any of those ministers who disapproved dared to raise any objections. Incapable of dissimulation, Manet openly displayed the pleasure he felt at this honour which had at last been given him. With his usual politeness, he insisted on calling upon each of the members of the jury who voted in his favour, in order to convey his thanks in person. Manet had at last won recognition. He had lived to see that long delayed appreciation of his works which he had always been looking for. Both by friends and foes he was acknowledged LAST YEARS 99 to be the initiator of an art over which the battle had raged long and fiercely. The medal portended the triumph of the aesthetic which he had inaugurated over the traditions which he had aban- doned. Thus in the Salon of 1882 lie found himself among the elect. On the frame of his pictures was the inscription, the infallible guarantee of respectability — Hors Concours. Evi- dently this altered the attitude of the public towards him. It was no longer possible to ridicule him as light-heartedly as in former days. But although the public ceased to denounce Manet's works openly, it was still far from really understanding or enjoying them. When large masses of people have formed a certain opinion, it biasses their judgment indefinitely ; a change only takes place after a long lapse of time, or not even until the arrival of a new generation. So if at the Salon of 1882 the public no longer displayed the same contempt for Manet, they scarcely showed any more real appreciation of his pictures than formerly ; they were altogether unable to understand the meaning of the principal picture that he sent in that year. It was called Un Bar aux Folies-Bergere. In the centre of the picture the barmaid is seen full face, standing behind the bar. A mirror behind her shows that she is talking to a man, who is seen only in the reflection. It was this peculiarity of the mirror, reflecting the various figures and objects in the room, which made people declare that the composition was incompre- hensible. Moreover, the girl did not amuse by reason of what she was doing ; she was simply standing ready to serve customers. Manet had painted her with the vacant eye and placid expression which he always gave to this type of woman. The array of provisions which stood on the bar afforded him an opportunity of painting one of those still-life studies which he delighted in. It had pleased him to arrange side by side flasks, bottles of liqueur, various kinds of fruits, so chosen as to present a contrast of vivid colour. He painted them in full light, harmonising them, however, and fusing them with the general tone of the picture. The picture which was exhibited at the same time as the Bar aux Folies-Bergere was entitled, Jeanne. It was a half- 100 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS length portrait of a girl in a flowered dress, with a stylish hat hold ng an umbrella in her hand. She was quite charming, and escaped the disparagement to which Manet's figures were usually ea of 1882 was the last at which Manet exhibited. He was not destined to see the comparative degree of success which he had obtained develop into final victory. He was now ncaring the end of his career. Death was approaching, lav the autumn of 1879, seized with acute pains and weakness of the limbs, he fell down when leaving his stud, Paralysis of a nervous centre, ataxy, had set in, and was pronounced to be incurable. However, he had yet three years to live, and although walking became so difficult that he was almost entirely confined to his chair, the paralysis remained local- it never affected his mind, which preserved its lucu to the very last day. His illness, therefore, did not dimmish his power as a painter. He was still able to execute two im- portant works, the Portrait de Pertuiset and the Bar auoc Fohes- Bergere But if he was finally unable to undertake works ot such dimensions and obliged to restrict himself to subjects not requiring the same expenditure of physical energy, he sti mained an assiduous worker, and produced a great number flower-pieces, still-life studies, and portraits in pastel. Moreover, the open-air pictures, which he painted during the three years of his illness, possess an intensity of light which marks the summit of his achievement in this class of work. He now seldom went far away from Paris, but spent the summer months in its neighbourhood. In the summer of 1881 he painted a picture of the garden of the house where he was staying at Versailles. The picture is empty of human interest, simply a garden -seat standing out against green plants and a wall but the picture is remarkable for its glow of colour and brilliance of light. He also painted at Versailles, in the open air, the Jeune Taureau, a bull standing in a pasture, the only picture which he produced in this genre. In 1882 he painted the facade of the house belonging to Labiche, the dramatist, at Reuil, which he had taken for the summer. It i LAST YEARS 10] was a modern, square, commonplace building, with grey shutters, but out of this unpromising material he created two of his most luminous and seductive effects. Manet was a man of an excessively nervous and sensitive temperament. It was to this quality that he owed his keenness of v1sion. The images which the eye conveyed to the brain were con- ceived with a vividness which, when it was transferred to the can- vas, appeared excessive to the commonplace vision of ordinary men. But while his superiority as an artist was in some measure due to his exceptional temperament, it was also responsible for his fragility of body. The strain of work and the terrible struggle which he had to sustain all his life, first against his family and his master Couture, then against the attacks of the juries, the press and the public, finally proved too much for him. His life might have been prolonged to a certain extent if he had resigned himself to bear his illness without having recourse to specious remedies. But the loss of his power of movement was insupportable to a man of his activity. The remedies which he took acted as a temporary stimulant, but ultimately brought on blood-poisoning. At last it was found necessary to amputate his leg. He lingered for eighteen days after the operation, without ever realising that he had lost his limb, but he was unable to survive the shock. He died on April 30, 1883. Manet was the type of the perfect Frenchman. I have heard Kantm-Latour say : « I put him into my Hommage a Delacroix his true Gallic head." Painters judge by the eye, and Fantm's judgment was not mistaken. Manet was fair, active, of medium height. His face was open and expressive; he could never mask his feelings ; the mobility of his features betrayed him. 2 used to accompany his speech with gesture, and in uttering his thoughts a kind of play of countenance lent emphasis to his mean- He was all exuberance and impetuosity. His first impressions, whether of vision or of judgment, were astonishingly accurate. In- tuition revealed to him what others only discover after reflection. He had a brilliant wit ; his sayings could be very bitter, but at the same time there was a large geniality, sometimes even a kind of artlessness, in his manner. He was extremely sensitive to the 102 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS respect or the disrespect which was shown to him He was never able o accustom himself to treat the insults which were heaped upon him as an artist with indifference ; he felt them « .acutely at the end of his career as at the beginning. At first he used b vile those who reviled him. In his personal relations with other ™ n h ^equally susceptible. He fought a duel with Duranty Because of a few stinging words followed by a blow. But with this L ceptibility and promptness to take offence he never harboured any Lcour. His heart was as large as his intelligence. As a friend he was as staunch as he was delightful. I'* PART II THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS CHAPTER XII THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP ALREADY in their youth, when they were still merely unknown lents, the painters who afterwards came to be known as Impressionists were characterised by an instinctive spirit of in- lependence. They felt a strong impulse to break away from the lonal rules. Consequently they took for their guides the en who at that time had carried painting furthest in the direct bservation of nature and of life-Corot and Courbet. These were two masters, whom, quite independently and without beim? known to one another, they had first chosen to follow Pissarro Jerthe Morisot profited by the teaching of Corot ; Renoir for brief period painted under the influence of Courbet; Cezanne originally borrowed from Courbet his tonality and his colour scheme. If the very first works of the painters who developed into Impressionists could be gathered together, the same scale of colour, ranging from that of Corot to that of Courbet, would be as a common element in their work, beneath the iividual differences of manner which were already making them- selves manifest. At this point Manet appeared. When the success of forms of art or modes of thought has become finally established, nothing is more difficult than to realise ling of repugnance with which they were first received that Manet is accepted as a master, it is impossible to con- the anger and disgust which his works actually inspired when they first appeared. The fact is only explained when it is re- that they presented the most violent contrast with all the other painting of the time, and thus shocked the received ideas t was right in art. It is necessary to bear in mind that at time when Manet arose, Corot and Courbet, who marked the 100 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS limit of the forward movement, were still disliked by the public ; their freedom of style and method was not understood, and was imitated only by a small number of the younger artists. Even Delacroix was still generally regarded simply as an extravagant colourist, who painted on false and irregular principles. The members of the Imtitut, the students in the great ateliers, the ccole de Rome, literary men in general and the public at large, were at that time under the yoke of tradition. All rendered homage to what was known as le grand art — classical, historical, and religious painting, and the rendering of the nude according to the forms derived from the Italian Renaissance. The theories with regard to chiaroscuro, as they were universally taught and implicitly followed in the studios, have already been described. No one imagined that light could exist in a picture without its obligatory and correlative accompaniment of shadow. No one believed that bright colours could be introduced without inter- mediary half tones. Manet's Dejeuner sur Iherbe and Olympia, painted in defiance of all those rules which were considered essential in art, were viewed with general horror. But the more independent spirits among the younger men, those who felt con- strained to extricate themselves from an antiquated tradition, saw in this rebel against the banality of the time an initiator and a guide. After having first passed under the influence of Corot and Courbet, they now took a fresh step forward and moved in the direction of Manet. Thus the younger painters, who had hitherto remained isolated and unknown to one another, formed a group round Manet and in him found a common bond of union. While working in the Louvre about the year 1861, Manet made the acquaintance of two sisters, one of whom, Berthe Morisot, subsequently married his brother. She was one of the first who borrowed his method of painting in bright colours and luminous tones. Pissarro and Claude Monet were also among th7e earliest to adopt it. Pissarro painted in a scheme of colour which was advanced for the time, although it appears rather sober in comparison with the luminous painting to which he afterwards devoted himself. The Dejeuner sur I'herbe and the Olympia fascinated him ; he immediately appreciated the value THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 10? of these works executed according to a new formula, and spoke of them in terms of the highest praise. He became personally acquainted with Manet in 1866, and from that time their con- nection remained unbroken. In 1862 a close friendship was formed between four young men who worked in Gleyre's studio — Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, and Bazille. Moved by the same ideas, they were to develop on similar lines. Claude Monet, who took the lead among them, had seen the exhibition of fourteen pictures which Manet had held at Martinet's in the spring of 1863. It made a profound impression upon him. Here he found his road to Damascus. He continued for several years, however, to work independently, and did not come into personal contact with Manet until 1866. In that year Zacharie Astruc took him to Manet's studio, and there the friendship was formed which united the two men throughout their lives. In the formation of the Impressionist group we see a body of men, responsive to certain ideas which were in the air at the time, exercising a directing influence upon one another during their formative period. Thus, Manet had acted upon Monet, and now Monet was beginning to act upon Sisley. Having seen the luminous works painted by Monet, Sisley also began to paint in full light and in bright colours. Monet and Sisley were two landscape painters who were to advance side by side upon the same road, each following his own tendency. On the other hand Renoir, who had also adopted the new mode of painting, was to make a special place for himself in the movement as a painter of figures. Bazille, the fourth of the little group which was formed at Gleyre's studio, after having shown exceptional promise, was cut off early in his career ; he was killed in 1871 at the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande. Two other young men were also at this time attracted by Manet's painting — Cezanne, a friend of Zola's, and Guillaumin, who, after having first painted in a tonality akin to that of Courbet, came to adopt the new scale of bright colours. Thus Manet had rallied round him a number of men of common ideas but of different origins. Their chief concern was to keep in touch with one another, and to secure opportunities for interchange 108 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS of views with Manet. The question of holding regular meetings arose. Manet's studio in the Rue Guyot was not a suitable place of rendezvous, but near the Rue de Saint-Pdtersbourg, where he lived with his wife and mother, was a spacious and comfortable cafe, the Cafe" Guerbois. Manet and his friends formed the habit of meeting one another in the evening in this, ca.f4^ The gather- ings first begun accidentally in 1866, came to acquire a fixed and regular character. The group of painters, who were originally bound together by their common adoption of Manet's aesthetic code, was gradually enlarged by the inclusion of artists of a dif- ferent order and of men of letters. Among those who habitually frequented the caf£ were Fantin-Latour, who always retained his distinctive manner of painting ; Guillemet, the painter of naturalistic landscapes ; the engravers Desboutins and Belot ; Duranty, the critic novelist of the realist school ; and Zacharie Astruc, sculptor and poet. Emile Zola used to appear there fairly regularly, and also Cladel the novelist, Degas, and Stevens occasionally. Vignaud, Babou, and Burty, all men of letters, were the most assiduous in their attendance. These, together with the painters immediately connected with Manet, formed the principal members of the group ; but when the meetings became known, the friends and acquaint- ance of the habitue's came to them also, and on certain evenings the Cafe" Guerbois was filled with a whole world of artists and literary men. Manet was the dominating figure ; with his anima- tion, his flashing wit, his sound judgment on matters of art, he gave the tone to the discussions. Moreover, as an artist who had suffered persecution, who had been expelled from the Salons, and excommunicated by the representatives of official art, he was naturally marked out for the place of leadership among a group of men whose one common feature, in art and literature, was the spirit of revolt. From 1868 until the outbreak of the war, the Cafe" Guerbois was a centre of intellectual life, where these ardent, youthful spirits heartened one another to fight the good fight and to face the inevitable hardships of the struggle. For the question at issue was nothing less than an attack upon the prin- ciples and systems which were generally received and honoured at the time. The period was that of the Second Empire, when THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 109 the spirit of authority was being vigorously revived ; constituted es of all kinds were invested with an immense amount of power; in art, the academies and the juries of the Salons exer- cised a veritable dictatorship. But it is the glory of youth, when tew modes and ideas are dawning upon the world, to fling itself the work of their propagation with a kind of sacred fire, so -hat resistance only stimulates the vigour of the attack. Manet and his friends strengthened one another in their views to such purpose that not all the opposition, abuse, ridicule, and even at es the actual want which they had to suffer, caused them to waver or to deviate from the path in which they had chosen to go. While subjects of all kinds were discussed at the Cafe" Guer- Jis, Manet and his friends were particularly concerned with questions touching their art. They were developing simul- taneously the theory and the practice of^aintina in bright fega and in the open,, air. Bright toneTand pkin air were ;hese years, the objects of their unceasing research Manet, who hitherto had painted his outdoor scenes, such as the Dejeuner sur Cherbe, in the studio from studies made out t doors, now began to execute important pictures directly in the open air. But the mark of difference between Manet and t of the group was the fact that, while open-air paint- formed only a part of his output, Pissarro, Monet, Sislev Gu,llaurmn devoted themselves to it exclusively, and even Renoir, the figure-painter, at this period worked principally in the open air Moreover, Manet and his friends came to adopt Terent modes of life, corresponding with the differences in :heir manner of painting. Manet, essentially a Parisian, attached ife of the Boulevard, continued to paint figures and sub- *s in the studio, which he only left on special occasions, when he to paint open-air scenes. The others, however, all >rsook Paris and settled in the country, working no longer in the studio but always in the open air, face to face with nature The years during which they foregathered in the Cafe" Guerbois were fruitful ones. Manet gave the men who gathered round him chmque of painting in bright and luminous tones, and then 110 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS interchanging ideas, they proceeded to develop, each in his own way but all together, the method of painting in the open air. This happy entente was given concrete expression by Fantin-Latour in his picture painted in 1870— Un Atelier aux Batignolles. The artist, of course, took the license of substituting Manet's studio for the actual meeting-place, the Cafe" Guerbois. The war of 1870 scattered Manet and his friends far and wide. Pissarro went to London, Monet to Amsterdam, Zola to Bordeaux. Manet remained in Paris. After peace had been restored the meetings at the Cafe Guerbois were not resumed. Already before the war, Pissarro, Monet, and Sisley had ceased to live in Paris ; now they definitely established themselves in the country — Pissarro at Pontoise, Monet at Argenteuil, Sisley at Voisins, and Cezanne soon afterwards went to live at Auvers. Hence Manet's friends were no longer able to continue the uninterrupted intercourse with him and with each other which they had enjoyed before. They still kept in touch with one another, however ; their meetings were less frequent, and took place now in Manet's studio in the Rue de Saint-Petersbourg. Meanwhile, with their method of painting in bright tones and of working in the open air, they began by degrees to excite atten- tion. It was generally known that a number of painters had gathered round Manet and were working under his influence. The papers had spoken about the meetings at the Cafe Guerbois. After the exhibition of Fantin's picture in the Salon of 1870 — Un Atelier aux Batignolles — Manet and his friends were known as the " Batignolles school." Some of their friends, as yet very few, had bought their pictures, and talked about them enthusiastically. One or two dealers showed them to their customers. Thus the painters who were developing the new formula had begun to be known to the small world which cares about art ; they now thought of arresting the attention of the general public by means of a systematic exhibition of their works. They had to decide the question as to whether they should exhibit at the Salon or else- where. Although frequently rejected, their works had found their way into the Salon in sufficient numbers before 1870. Pissarro, THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP m the eldest of them all, had begun to exhibit landscapes in the Salon as early as 1859. Refused in 1863, he exhibited in the Salon dcs of w*^\yeU' Afterwards he wa* ^mitted to the Salons of 1865, 1866, 1868, 1869 and 1870. He had not yet developed his luminous manner; his scale of colour, following that of Corot rbet had found acceptance. Berthe Morisot had likewise exhibited at a number of Salons without meeting with any Mon fs' 1 ^ Sal°n. °f 1868 thC futUre ImFessionists, Pissarro! lonet Sisley, Renoir, had all been represented. Renoir had sent a parfcularly important canvas, Lise, painted in the open air and already for that period, bright in colour; but as it was still based on Courbeu technique, it provoked no definite opposition. During these early years, the most venturesome canvases had come from et who had at once begun to paint most daringly in the open air in bold and luminous tones. the LlhUS if' If °rC 187°' thCy WGre fredy admitted to th* Salon, iey owed their acceptance to the fact that they had as yet acquired only a limited notoriety, and had not yet carried their use luminous tones to its extreme development. Moreover, as their ™ letlThT8 y Ttte;ed through the salleries' their simila"ty method had as yet made no striking impression ; they had not obtained any cumulative effect by being seen as a whoL Afte the war however, they had grown bolder and had developed their " e~ areste en~ey CC°me kn°™ ' ** had ttention; they were regarded as rebels. The novelty of W " n cen I u a™- censuie. It was certain, therefore, that henceforth the Salons would be systematically closed against them. Moreover even if o^h a^itted' thdr ™ks —U "SI appear sc^ed down the galleries far apart from one another-they would rP to receive due recognition. They decided therefore work to When the Salons were resumed after the war the futu Impress.on.sts were represented in those of W2 and 1878 only by 112 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Berthe Morisot. Of the others, Renoir alone had submitted his work, which had been refused. Thus for three years they had failed to secure publicity for their work— a long period for young men burning with zeal, and anxious to make their way. They therefore formed a scheme for holding a private exhibition in 1874. Manet had now to decide whether he would exhibit with them or not. A first divergence between him and them had arisen when they had decided to settle permanently in the country, in order to devote themselves primarily to open-air painting, while he remained in Paris, painting in his studio, and only working in the open air exceptionally. Now the first difference was accentuated by a second — he continued to exhibit at the Salons, leaving them to organise independent exhibitions elsewhere. Manet had in fact battled his way into the Salon after a brilliant struggle, which had made his name famous, and he did not wish to forego the advantage of the universal attention, which his works always attracted when they appeared in the Salon, by exhibiting them in an independent exhibition, where they would have received far less prominence. While he thus confined himself to the Salon, his friends who, com- pared with him, were still at the threshold of their career, were to fight out their battle upon a different field. Pissarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Cezanne, and Guillaumin, held their first collective exhibition in 1874. They did not yet, however, come before the public alone, as a select and isolated group, but only in association with other artists. To hold a special exhibition was a bold experi- ment ; it entailed considerable expense, which they were anxious to spread over as great a number of exhibitors as possible. More- over, in order to attract a sufficient number of visitors, and to secure more effectually the notice of the press, they felt it neces- sary to enlarge their circle, and to unite with artists already more or less known, who had certain points of resemblance with them- selves in their independent attitude and more liberal view of art. Accordingly they combined with Degas, Bracquemond, de Nittis, Brandon, and with the landscape painters, Boudin, Cals, Gustave Collin, Latouehe, Lepine, Rouart, and some others — about thirty in all. Together they formed a society, which took the title of THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 113 Socicte anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, ct gravcurs. They secured full publicity for their exhibition by holding it in the crowded thoroughfare of the Boulevard des Capucines. It was visited by a comparatively large number of people. It brought the exponents of the new painting in particular into great, but disastrous, notoriety. The pictures were pronounced to be form- less, the artists perverted, ignorant, presumptuous. The exhibi- tion, however, led to one result which they had never anticipated. It gave them something which until then they had lacked — a name. It will have been noticed that hitherto we have been obliged to speak of them as "Manet's friends," "the exponents of the new painting," or " the future Impressionists." Similarly, until 1874, no one knew exactly how to designate them. Some called them les Peintres de la Nouvelle peinture, which was the term that Duranty adopted ; others the Independants, or, again, the Intransigeants. Of the thirty painters taking part in the exhibition in the Boulevard des Capucines, the small group of Manet's friends, who had boldly adopted the system of painting in bright colours and in the open air, attracted most attention. Claude Monet's canvases were particularly characteristic, and it was one of these which gave rise to the new name. He exhibited five altogether, one of which was entitled, Impression: soldi levant. This was a view in a harbour, with lightly indicated boats appearing through a transparent haze, which was illumined by the red- hued sun. The title was in keeping with the light rapid touch and the general indefiniteness of the outlines. Such a work adequately expressed the formula of the new painting. Thus, by its title and its technique, it suggested the term which appeared most aptly to characterise the artists belonging to the new school — that of Impressionists. The name which came, as it were, spontaneously to the lips of those who visited the exhibition, was within a few days taken and applied by Le Charivari. This paper published an article dealing with the exhibition, under the heading of Exposition des Ivipressionistes. The new name was used in a strictly depreci- atory sense, with an implication of ignorance and presumption. H 114 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS The article was simply a series of sneers and sarcasms. The term Impressionist took time to spread ; it was not until after the lapse of several years that it came into general use. At first the artists to whom it was applied paid no attention to it ; then when it had become so common that they were no longer able to ignore it, they repudiated it, since it was always used disparagingly. Eventually, however, as the name had become established in popular speech, and as they themselves were unable to find a better one, they adopted it, and began to make use of it themselves. Thus the exhibition of April 1874 in the Boule- vard des Capucines, although at the time it had been regarded as negligible, and had only attracted the unintelligent curiosity of passers-by, is now seen to mark an important date in the history of French art in the nineteenth century. There, for the first time, were to be found side by side those painters whose technique, system, and methods constituted a new contribution to art, and there originated the words " Impressionists " and " Impressionism " that are now known all over the world. In the meantime, the only result of this exhibition was to increase the public contempt for the painters whom we now call Impressionists. Their works became unsaleable. Collectors and would-be connoisseurs emphatically refused to buy them. This fact was brought home to the Impressionists in March 1875, when they attempted to hold a sale of their works. As they had been unable to hold an exhibition that year, their object was as much to bring themselves again before the public notice as to obtain money. Seventy pictures by Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, and Berthe Morisot were put up to auction at the Hotel Drouot. Those upon which they put a very slight reserve price they were obliged to withdraw ; the others only found purchasers among a very small circle of friends. The total of the sale, including those that were withdrawn, amounted only to 10,346 francs. However, as they had no intention of giving up the struggle, they persisted in holding exhibitions of their works. Their second exhibition took place in 1876, two years after the first, in the galleries of M. Durand-Ruel, in the Rue le Peletier. Pissarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, were all represented. THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 115 A new recruit, Caillebotte, appeared for the first time ; Cezanne and Guillaumiri were absent. The number of allied painters who did not belong to their system had diminished ; in place of thirty exhibitors in 187-1, there were only nineteen in 1876. The name Impressionist was in common use on the occasion of the second exhibition ; visitors, journalists and critics, made use of it as an appropriate and expressive term. This exhibition increased the notoriety of the Impressionists, but did not advance them in the public favour. On the contrary, according as they became better known, they found themselves held in greater contempt. Albert Wolff, then held in high repute as a critic, wrote of them in the Figaro as follows : " The Rue Peletier is unfortunate. Following upon the burning of the Opera-House, a new disaster has fallen upon the quarter. There has just been opened at M. Durand- Ruel's an exhibition of what is said to be painting. The innocent passer-by enters, and a cruel spectacle meets his terrified gaze. Here five or six lunatics, of whom one is a woman, have chosen to exhibit their works. There are people who burst out into laughter in front of these objects. Personally I am saddened by them. These so-called artists style themselves Intransigeants, Impres- sionists. They take paint, brushes, and canvases ; they throw a few colours on to the canvas at random, and then they sign the lot. In the same way the inmates of a madhouse pick up the stones on the road and believe they have found diamonds." Firmer than ever in their resolution to continue the fight, the Impressionists organised a third exhibition in 1877, once again in the Rue le Peletier. This time the group of Impressionists proper filled almost the whole of the exhibition, which included some '240 pictures. Abandoning their original title of Societe Anonyme, they decided to appropriate the name of Impressionists, which had been given them against their will, and had until now been repudiated by them. The adoption of the word Impres- sionist led to the withdrawal of those less daring artists, painting in a modified scale of colour, who had been associated with them in their first exhibition. Instead of thirty exhibitors in 1874 and nineteen in 1876, their numbers were now reduced to eighteen. All the true Impressionists were represented here — Pissarro, Claude 116 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Cezanne, Guillaumin, to- gether with Caillebotte and a few other recruits. As the pictures of these men occupied almost the whole of the space, the character of the exhibition was less mixed and more emphatic than that of 1874. It had a more uncompromising appearance. Moreover, as they were all in sympathy with one another, and all fired with the same enthusiasm, they had during the last three years so encouraged and stimulated one another, that their distinguishing peculiarities had become developed and accentuated. For this reason also their third exhibition was more audacious than the first. It gave rise to an extraordinary outburst of laughter, contempt, indignation, and disgust. It became a notable event in Parisian life. It was talked about in the cafes of the boulevards, in clubs and in drawing-rooms, as some remarkable phenomenon. Numbers of people went to see it. They were not attracted by any sort of artistic interest ; they simply went in order to give themselves that unpleasant thrill which is produced by the sight of anything eccentric and extrava- gant. Hence there was much laughter and gesticulation on the part of the visitors. They went in a mood of hilarity : they began to laugh while they were still in the street ; they laughed as they were going up the stairs ; they were convulsed with laughter the first moment they cast their eyes upon the pictures. A critic, writing of the works of the Impressionists in La Chronique des Arts, said of them : " They provoke laughter, and yet they are lamentable. They display the profoundest ignorance of drawing, of composition and of colour. When children amuse themselves with a box of colours and a piece of paper, they do better." No new contribution to the resources of art has been achieved in the nineteenth century without arousing more or less violent opposition. If the Impressionists received unjust treatment at their exhibition of 1877, it was because they had now arrived at the complete development of their manner and had shown works of an utterly different character from anything that had been seen before. Cezanne was the one among them who both now and for a long time afterwards excited most detestation. It is not too much to say that he was regarded almost as something monstrous and inhuman. He was slow in coming to maturity. To the first THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 117 exhibition in 1874, he sent La Maison du pendu a Auvers, a work already showing great power, which he surpassed, however, in in- tensity of colour and originality of composition with his portrait of M. Choquet and his landscapes exhibited in the Rue le Pelctier. The work of Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, and Guillaumin showed the characteristics of open-air Impressionism carried to its furthest limit. Pissarro exhibited pictures of kitchen-gardens and fields of cabbages — subjects which were considered to be low and vulgar, the negation of all art. Shortly after the close of the exhibition, the Impressionists held another sale of their pictures. It had no better success than that of 1875. Forty-five canvases of Caillebotte, Pissarro, Sisley, and Renoir realised only 7610 francs, and of them a considerable number had to be withdrawn. The sale took place at the Hotel Drouot, in the presence of an amused and contemptuous public, who received the pictures as they were put up to auction with groans. They amused themselves with passing several of them round from hand to hand, turned upside down. This witticism had emanated with the Le Charivari; it professed that in the Impressionist landscapes the line of the horizon was indistinguish- able, that earth, water, and sky were equally amorphous, and that consequently it made no difference whether the bottom of the picture became the top or the top the bottom. The pleasantry became popular and found its way into the theatres. An im- pressionist dauber was introduced into the revues, and was repre- sented as incapable of finding out which was the top and which the bottom of the canvases that he had smeared with paint upon the stage. In spite of opprobium and mockery the Impressionists continued to hold exhibitions of their works. None it is true had the same importance or created the same sensation as that of 1877, which marked a culminating point in their career. They held an exhibi- tion each year from 1879 to 1882, usually in the rooms of empty houses that had just been built or were being repaired, situated in the most frequented streets. In 1883, from March to June, they held an exhibition in the Boulevard de la Madeleine, when each month was devoted to the works of a different painter — first Claude 118 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Monet, then Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley. These exhibitions caused the Impressionists to be better known, but did not at first effect any change in public opinion. Time, however, was working^ in their favour. As the public became more familiar with their work, it began to appreciate what at first had appeared merely monstrous. About 1886 to 1888 circumstances became more] propitious. The friends who had supported them from the beginning had made recruits. New painters began to paint in a bright scale of colour ; they extended the circle of Impressionism, and gave a kind of sanction to the originators of the movement. Vindications of their work appeared in the press. Thus the Impressionists gained ground steadily. Beginning with the years 1894 to 1895 a decisive change took place, which suddenly led collectors both in France and in other countries to seek after the very works that at first had been so much decried and despised. In their struggle the Impressionist painters had suffered actual want, as well as opprobium and ridicule. But it is to their honour that they had never allowed themselves to swerve from the path which they had marked out ; they had never for an instant consented to modify their manner in order to obtain acceptance with the public. Now, however, the period of want was over ; and although opposition and disparagement persisted in numerous quarters, and the struggle had still to be continued, the final and brilliant victory was no longer doubtful. How was it that the art of the Impressionists presented novel and unexpected effects ? Whence came that impression as of something exceptional and apart, which at first excited laughter, contempt, and horror? At their starting-point the Impressionists had borrowed from Manet his technique of bright coloration, unencumbered with traditional shadows, and they had begun to paint actually in the open air, face to face with nature. As has been said, they were not the originators of open-air painting; but their great innova- tion was to establish as a fundamental system a practice that other painters, including Constable, Corot, and Courbet, had only used exceptionally and incidentally. All their landscapes, THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 119 and all those pictures of figures with a background of landscape, were executed out of doors in the vivid radiance of light, and were wholly finished immediately before the scene which they represented. The exclusive use of bright colour, and the continuous prac- tice of painting in full light in the open air, formed a new and daring combination, which gave rise to an art possessing certain novel features. In effect, the painter who worked consistently face to face with nature was led to seize various fugitive effects of colour, which until then had been neglected. A landscape was no longer the same for him when seen under the different effects of sunshine and cloud, moisture and drought, morning, noon, and evening. The painter confined in the studio had invested nature with a certain uniform aspect, a fixed and un- changing character, which the open-air painter was unable to recognise. For the studio painter, foliage had hitherto been of a determinate shade of green, water had been oouleur (Feau, the sky had been of a particular kind of blue and the clouds of a particular kind of grey. But for the Impressionist, with his eyes fixed always upon nature, a ^landscape could not present itself otherwise than under a variety of aspects, which were determined by variations of light and changes of atmosphere. And as the Impressionist was able to avail himself of the new resources obtained by the use of pure tones, unadulterated with shadow, he could apply to his canvas those brilliant colours which corresponded with the various effects which nature offered him. Thus there were to be seen in the pictures of the Impressionists splashes of light which the sun, shining through the leaves of trees, casts on the ground ; the pure, delicate greens which caress the earth in spring were faithfully rendered ; fields burnt by the summer sun took a reddish tinge ; water was no longer of a uniform colour, but held on its surface all colours in turn. Then having discovered that shadows when seen in the open air are variously coloured, according to the effects of light, the Impressionists painted them without hesitation blue, violet, lilac. In works executed on these principles, the public were sud- denly confronted with a coloration which had never before been 120 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS seen in painting. It was possible that they corresponded with the actual appearance of nature, seen in a certain way ; but people were not in the habit of observing nature in order to decide whether this correspondence was just or not ; they judged only by comparison with the kind of painting which was currently accepted, upon which their vision had been formed. Hence they found in the novel and unexpected coloration of the Impressionist pictures something absolutely unintelligible and unrecognisable. The fact that the Impressionists systematically painted directly from nature, led them to dispose the general arrangement of their pictures otherwise than their predecessors had done. There were no traces in their works of those formally composed out- lines, those conventional arrangements which landscape painted in the studios had never quite got rid of. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, landscape has approached closer and closer to nature. To the historical landscape, in which nature was absolutely " architectonic," succeeded works of a more inti- mate character composed of simpler forms. However, even Corot and Rousseau, to instance two earlier painters, preserved in a sensible degree the former method of modifying the actual scenes which they reproduced. Rousseau's landscapes are ob- viously arranged in the studio ; he treated his oaks, in par- ticular, almost as figures, and imposed a definite attitude upon them. Corot himself was not at first admired for those studies and figure-pieces in which he came to close quarters with life and nature, but for his well-balanced pictures in which nymphs are dancing among the trees. The Impressionists, painting directly from nature, had neither the time nor the means to undertake that work of reconstruction, of elaboration, of metamorphosis, to which the painters working in the studio used to devote themselves. To this fact was due not only the simpler forms of their pictures, but also the greater range of their subjects. Earlier painters, accustomed to compose in their studios, had given preference to certain aspects of nature ; they had searched for those scenes which were considered to possess some special quality of the noble or the picturesque, and THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 121 therefore to be alone worthy of being reproduced in art. The open-air Impressionist was concerned only with recording sor.ie momentary effect of atmosphere, of light or of foliage, Avhich had , struck him; that effect gave him his subject; he was no longer preoccupied with the scene in which he had surprised it. He was on the high-road, and he introduced it into his picture, to- gether with the branchless trees that bordered it ; and this motive appeared to him as noble as any other. He found himself over- looking a village, and he painted it with the kitchen gardens and fields of vegetables which might happen to surround it. When he came across water he was not disconcerted, as painters of the older school had been, if it was limpid and full of reflection ; he rendered it under all its various aspects, finding it as interesting in grey weather and in the heavy rain which made it yellow and opaque, as in the sunlight which gave the transparency of a mirror. Thus the works of the Impressionists in their rejection of formal composition, of selected scenes, of elaborate themes, Avere in the nature of a departure from the sanctioned treatment of landscape, and further, their indefinite touch and broad handling added novel and surprising features to their abnormal character. It was impos- sible that in the works of the Impressionists the contours should be as fixed, the lines as rigid, the forms as precise, as in the older manner of painting. When they painted the enveloping fog or mist, when they painted the shifting splashes of light striking the ground through the leaves of trees tossed in the wind, when they painted the tumult of the sea breaking in waves upon the rocks, or the swiftly-floAving current of a flood, they could hope to succeed in rendering the effect only by suppressing precise and rigid out- lines. What they wished to record was the actual impression which objects made upon their vision ; the sensation Avhich they Avished to convey was that of movement and light, and they could often only achieve this by leaving forms and outlines in a state of indecision and flux. We have avoided including Degas among the Impressionists, although he was always allied with them in their exhibitions, and 122 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS is usually classed with them nowadays. But to-day the bearing of the name Impressionist has been enormously extended, and has lost all precise significance. To be exact, Degas should be ranked apart from the Impressionists ; his origins and the nature of his art differentiate him from them. Moreover, to regard him as one of them is contrary to his own wishes ; he always personally repudi- ated the title of Impressionist. When at the exhibition of 1874 those painters who actually displayed the characteristics, which gave rise to the term, definitely adopted it, he opposed its adoption to the utmost of his power. Degas has only his colour, which in part he owed to them, in common with the Impressionists. For the rest he did not, like them, practise painting in the open air systematically ; his technique is of a different order. His starting- point was classical tradition. He was before all things a draughts- man. His ancestors were Poussin and Ingres. We find among his earliest work a copy of the Enlcvement des Sabines by Poussin and some drawings executed in the style of Ingres. His first original Avork was a Semiramis, conceived directly on the lines of that historical painting which the Impressionists always either ignored or detested. With a mind in sympathy with the spirit of his age, Degas abandoned the historical painting which had at first seduced him, and began to paint modern subjects; but he never altered the technique which he had originally adopted. He always remained the draughtsman, informed by the classical idea. He is of a generation a little earlier than that of the Impressionists — the generation of Manet, Whistler, and Fantin-Latour ; the men who became famous in 1863 on the occasion of the Salon des refuses. He developed, however, more slowly than they, and did not produce characteristic work until some years later; but he ought not on that account to be put in a different class from them. He was older than any of the Impressionists except Pissarro. Neither should the landscape painters, Boudin and Lepine, be ranked with the Impressionists, although such is usually the custom nowadays. They joined with them in the first exhibition of 1874, but they abstained from participating in the later ones. Their intention was to occupy a neutral ground; when, therefore, the DANSEUSE DRAWN BY DECJAS, ENGRAVED BY JACQUES BELTRA.ND THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 123 title of Impressionist became general and was used to designate the exhibitions, they withdrew in order that it might not be applied to them also. They adhered to a grey scheme of colour, less daring than that of the Impressionists, and it was quite natural that they should wish to remain distinct from those from whom they differed. We have now to mention the adherents who attached them- selves to the original Impressionists, and whose works were to be found side by side with theirs in successive exhibitions. We find in them artists of great originality, who in varying degrees appro- priated the methods and the range of colour proper to the Impres- sionists. They offer an illustration of the gradual evolution which the content of a new aesthetic may undergo. Ranging them chronologically, according to the years in which they took part in Impressionist exhibitions, we have first of all Caillebotte, who began to exhibit in 1876. In that year he showed his Raboteurs de parquet, a picture painted it is true in a rather sober scheme of colour, but in time his palette became brighter, especially through the influence of Monet. Next came Mary Cassatt, who took part in the exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881, 1886. Her claim to the title of Impressionist rests solely upon her colour, which grew continually more dazzling and luminous ; otherwise she formed herself under the influence of Degas. Her drawing is expressive ; her art full of feeling. She has also displayed her qualities of draughtsmanship in some very original engraved work. Gaugin appeared in the exhibitions of 1880, 1881, 1882, and 1886. HTs~ work at first approaches that of Pissarro and Ce"zanne. It was only later, when working at Tahiti, that he evolved his own indi- vidual coloration. At the exhibition of 1886 Seurat and Signac strike out into a path of their own and assume the style of Neo- Impressionists. They carried the system of the division of colour . to its extreme limit, applying the primary colours, pure without n-\ any admixture, in points and minute touches. Hence they have been given the name " Pointillists." The Impressionist exhibitions ended with the year 1886, when the group which imported a new principle into art made its great united effort. Its members, whose originality had now reached its 124 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS full development, were independent of mutual support. The Impressionists continued individually to wage the struggle and to force themselves upon the world, until their final success was assured. And while they succeeded in winning for themselves not only general appreciation but also the rank of masters, their in- fluence made itself felt in every direction ; Impressionism gained ground far and wide. Independently of those men of original talent who rallied round them and took part in their exhibitions, and in addition to the Neo-Impressionists with their own particular theory of colour, a great crowd of artists came to adopt in varying degrees their method of bright coloration, and made use of it as an integral part of their art. After the methods of Impressionism had reached their complete maturity, the formula was adopted by men who painted in the Impressionist manner in the very first instance, and not as converts from another school. The number of disciples increased every day. Finally Impressionism, spreading beyond the boundaries of France, where it had its birth, began to act upon the art of other countries. Max Liebermann, the leader of the new German school, overcame at last, in his own country, the opposition of traditional art to the free individual and impressionist aesthetic. Mr. Wynford Dewhurst, whose initial influence was that of Claude Monet, was one of the first exponents of Impressionism in England. The numerous landscapes, painted in France and in England, which he has exhibited have won adherents and supporters among con- noisseurs and collectors. In addition he has contributed as a writer and lecturer to familiarise the English public with the Impres- sionist art of France. Thus Impressionism, interpenetrating the art of painting in various guises, has become diffused and modified. Moreover, the words Impressionist and Impressionism have lost their precise significance. They may be said to be applied to all artists whose works reveal an instantaneous rendering of nature, by means of a bright coloration, freed from conventional shadow. Hence the term Impressionist is now used to include painters who lived before the word was invented, others who repudiated it when it appeared, or who certainly would have done so if they had ever suspected that it would have been applied to them. Finally it is given to THE IMPRESSIONIST GROUP 125 living painters who differ widely in their tendencies, their methods, the general character of their work. It is readily accepted, because it has attained a favourable signification, implying the idea of fresh- ness of technique and individuality of sensation. To be historical and exact, however, it is necessary in speaking of the beginning of the movement to reserve the name of Im- pressionist to those artists to whom it owes its origin. The Impressionists proper were those painters who, under the imme- diate influence of Manet, between 1865 and 1870, adopted the technique of bright coloration, emancipated from the traditional envelopment of shadow ; who then applied the method to the system of painting in the open air, face to face with nature ; who finally, at the two principal exhibitions of 1874 and 1877, gave a striking revelation of their powers in works of a new and original character. CHAPTER XIII PISSARRO CAMILLE PISSARRO was born on the 10th of July 1830, at St. Thomas in the Antilles, of Franco-Jewish parents. He was educated in France, where he learnt to draw. When he was recalled to St. Thomas in 1847, his artistic tastes were fully developed, and he had received sufficient instruction in drawing to enable him to continue his studies by himself. His drawing- master in Paris had said to him, " Above all, don't forget to draw cocoa-trees from nature." Accordingly he drew cocoa-trees from nature, and everything else round about him that interested him. His father, however, had intended him to follow a business career, and so there commenced the usual struggle between artistic instinct and paternal authority. A Danish painter, Fritz Melbye, who was passing though St. Thomas, was interested in his artistic tastes, and took him to Caracas, where he was able to draw and paint at his ease. In 1855, when he had come of age and was able to adopt the career of his own choice, he returned to France to devote himself entirely to art. He was particularly drawn towards Corot, and entered into personal relations with him. It must be remembered that during these years, from 1855 to 1860, Corot, painting in a very individual manner, was as yet appreciated only by a small number of painters and connoisseurs. In attaching himself to him, Pissarro at the very outset displayed his sureness of judgment and his strong impulse towards innovation. He had already at St. Thomas devoted himself to working in the open air ;4 Corot' s advice, there- fore, above all things to keep close to nature, only confirmed him in this practice. He never became a student at one of the famed Parisian ateliers ; he only attended those schools where studies are 126 PISSARRO 127 made from the living model. He jjayj^himself ^upjto thejpainting of landscape. To the Salon of 1859 he sent a landscape painted at Montmorency, which was accepted. He was rejected at the Salons of 1861 and 1863, and in the latter year exhibited land- scapes at the Salon des refuses. His landscapes were accepted at the Salons of 1864, 1865/1866. At this time he painted in a sober scheme of colour, in the manner which prevailed among the painters who were influenced by Corot and Courbet. The landscapes of this first period are particularly strongly painted, with great simplicity of perspec- tive, in a general tone of austere green and rather sombre greys. In comparison with the works which he produced later, they may be said to constitute his dark manner. But they are already notable for their values and for the feeling of the open air; the conventional chiaroscuro, which opposed certain passages en- veloped hi shadow to certain others artificially luminous, is entirely absent. At this moment Manet made his appearance. Rejecting the general method of fixed contrasts of lights and shadows, Manet painted in full light, laying bold colours immediately side by side without transition, in a way that nobody had yet dared to attempt. Pissarro was at once attracted by this method. He became personally acquainted with Manet in 1866, and when the Cafe Guerbois became a centre where those in revolt against the official art and those boldly seeking a new inspiration, were accustomed to meet with Manet, he was one of the most regular habitues. There he became friendly with Claude Monet and the other artists who were afterwards to be known as Impressionists. There also he was one of the champions of open-air painting. He had prac- tised it for years, and now he expounded its virtues, associating it with the method of painting in bright colours, an innovation adopted by him and his friends with the most fruitful results. After his marriage, Pissarro went to live at Louveciennes, taking a house on the high-road between Versailles and Saint- Germain, quite near to the aqueduct at Marly. The three years that he spent here, from 1868 until the war, were very profitable. His painting became continually brighter in tone. If the pictures -at 128 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS of this period could be ranged side by side in chronological order, it would be possible to note an advance in light and brightness of colour, almost, one might say, from day to day. Hitherto Pissarro had found no sale whatever for his pictures. He had lived on a small income which his mother had allowed him ever since his return to France, and just at the time when this ceased, happily for him, he began to be able to sell his work. He sold many of the pictures which he painted at Louveciennes to a dealer who was nicknamed " le pere Martin," a very worthy man, who had been a stonemason before becoming a picture-dealer. He was a connoisseur by instinct. He was one of the first to deal in pictures by Corot and Jongkind ; now that these two masters had come to be accepted and their works had reached a considerable price, he began to look about for new painters to take up. Among others he had discovered Pissarro. He paid him forty francs for canvases of a small size, which he tried to sell for eighty. If, as was often the case, he found this impossible, he lowered the price to sixty, content with a profit of twenty francs. The small pictures of this period to-day find a place in the best collections ; they are among the most appreciated of Pissarro's works. They consist of views of the high-road which ran past his house and rural scenes drawn from the surrounding country. Pissarro's peaceable pursuit of his art was interrupted by the war. His house, which was within the radius of the investiture of Paris, was occupied by the enemy's troops. He had to abandon it precipitately, leaving two or three hundred canvases behind him, — all those which he had accumulated while painting in the neigh- bourhood of Paris. They were all lost, probably burnt, as no trace of them was ever discovered afterwards. This explains why his early works, those painted before 1868, are now so rare. During the war, Pissarro lived in London, painting pictures of the sur- rounding district, particularly at Norwood, near the Crystal Palace. At the conclusion of the war he returned to France and settled at Pontoise, where he remained for the next ten years, until 1882. At this period, Cdzanne came to live at Auvers, where Vignon was already established. With Pissarro, who lived quite near at Pontoise, they formed a trio, working together, talking about o a! z z K u K 3 O O PISSARRO 129 their art, exchanging their ideas. Hitherto Cezanne had painted almost exclusively in the studio. It was at Auvers, working side by side with Pissarro and Vignon, who had for a long time been painting in the open air, that he began, with that tenacity which characterised him, to paint landscapes directly from nature. It was also at this moment that he invented his very individual coloration. Cezanne had developed a style from which his two friends had as yet borrowed little, but when he had developed his scheme of colour, so harmonious in what may be called its violence, they were not slow to profit by it. At this period Pissarro intro- duced into his landscapes a brilliant range of colour suggested by that of Cezanne. In writing a history of the Impressionists, it is necessary con- tinually to take account of the influence which they exerted upon one another and of their mutual indebtedness. Their ideas and their aims were the same ; their development proceeded on parallel lines. When, therefore, we speak here of the influence which they exercised upon one another, there is clearly no suggestion of that servile kind of imitation, in which the plagiary seizes upon a method that is already completely evolved and transfers it bodily to his own work. In the case of the Impressionists each brought day by day his own particular contribution of knowledge to the common fund ; each profited by what the other had discovered, but adapting and modifying it in accordance with his own temperament. Pissarro's work was accepted in the Salons of 1868, 1869, and 1870. After he had settled at Pontoise, however, he ceased to exhibit at the Salons, and threw himself into the discussions and preparations of his friends, which were to result in the estab- lishment of the independent Impressionist exhibitions. When the first exhibition was held in 1874 he contributed five land- scapes, and characteristic works of his subsequently appeared in those of 1876 and 1877. Thus he very actively assisted in the manifestation of that form of art known under the name of Impressionism. After having been one of its initiators, he con- tinued to take his share in the struggle by sending works to all the exhibitions until the last in 1886. By his assiduity he helped to f 130 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS fix the character which these first exhibitions presented, and conse- quently his work shared in the general condemnation. The Im- pressionists had certain methods in common which appeared monstrous at the time ; and in addition each one of them possessed certain characteristics which, when considered inde- pendently, only served to intensify the general feeling of repug- nance which the view of their collective work had inspired. This was particularly true of Pissarro, whose work was differentiated from that of the others by a strongly marked individuality. To define him by his characteristic feature, it may be said that he was the painter of rustic nature and rural life. He never sought for rare motives in nature, nor did he believe that the painter ought to search for remote and exceptional prospects. The places which went straight to his heart, in which he found the most intimate charm, were those of a familiar kind : the slope of a hill planted with fruit-trees, ploughland or harvest fields, grassy pastures, the village with its old houses and with its environment of garden plots. This rural side of nature appealed to him as strongly as to others those subjects of an exceptional character, which they selected with care and then set themselves to arrange and embellish. He had no wish to embellish anything. He kept to the faithful portrayal of scenes which, as they were the most common, had hitherto been despised and neglected. To him they seemed in nowise despicable ; he believed that it was possible to find in them motives of true artistic worth. At their first appearance, therefore, he found that his works offended against those canons of conventional taste which com- manded the respect of the age. Until then the ordinary side of nature — the village life, the actual soil on which the peasant laboured — had never received much attention in art. Those who looked at Pissarro's pictures, therefore, judged them to be alto- gether vulgar. Art, in their opinion, ought to rise to loftier planes — it ought to soar above the common things of life ; and to them Pissarro, who had eyes only for the homelier aspect of nature, appeared as boorish as one of his own peasants. Nowadays, when judgment has grown wise again, when it is understood that nothing in nature is in itself low or vulgar, s - w Q PISSARRO 181 this very rusticity which was once so despised has been singled out for praise. His work has pleased by virtue of his frankness in rendering nature as it really is, without attempting to force it into a conventional pattern. He has won admirers on account of the way in which he suggests the solitude of the country, the deep peace of the villages, the smell of the earth. The very fields, when painted by him in all their simplicity, have a soul, a strong and penetrating charm. In 1883 he went to live at Eragny-Bazincourt in the depart- ment of the Oise. There all round him were the rural scenes that he delighted in, and there he painted some of his sincerest and strongest work. The country pleased him, and he bought a house, wishing to settle down there permanently. He lived there for some years, painting his rustic landscapes, and would have probably continued this way of life until the end had not a slight infirmity, brought on by age, necessitated a change of plan. An affection of the eye, without attacking his sight, made it impossible for him to continue to paint in the open air. He was then sixty-six years old, an age when other men might have thought themselves entitled to rest after their labours. But age had robbed him neither of his ardour nor of his faculties. As he was unable, therefore, to continue any longer the kind of work in which he had been engaged all his life — the painting of fields — he began to apply himself to a new sphere, the painting of towns. In so doing, he found the means of carrying on his work~7n~spite of the weakness of his eye. He worked no longer in the open, but indoors, painting urban scenes from the windows of houses. In 1896 he began to paint a series of pictures at Rouen — the quays, the bridges, the vessels loading and unload- ing their cargoes. Afterwards he painted, at Paris, the Avenue de I'Ope'ra from a window in the Hotel du Louvre, and the Garden of the Tuileries from the window of a house in the Rue de Rivoli. He also painted from a house overlooking the Seine the Pont-Neuf, the quays, and the palace of the Louvre. Last of all, he painted the ports of Dieppe and Le Havre. Thus his views of towns form an unpremeditated appendage to his work. In painting them, he put to good use the methods which he had 132 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS previously employed, wherever they enabled him to obtain greater intensity of light and colour. A fundamental grey is always the keynote of his work, but the enveloping atmosphere always displays warmth of colour and intensity of light. At seventy -three Pissarro was still in the full exercise of his powers, and had no thought of relinquishing his work. He was engaged in a new series of pictures of the Seine, when death suddenly overtook him. He died, after a month of suffering, on November 12, 1903. Pissarro was of a kindly disposition and tranquil temper. He had gathered a great store of philosophy from his experience of life. The want and vexations which had accompanied the early struggles of the Impressionist movement had never disturbed his serenity of mind. He enjoyed the success and fortune which afterwards arrived, without however changing his habit of life in any particular, and without seeking after those honours, de- corations, and rewards which the majority of artists desiderate. He left five children, four sons and a daughter. Lucien, the eldest son, has made a name as a draughtsman and engraver on wood ; the second, who signs his works with the pseudonym Manzana, has devoted himself to landscape and decorative painting. Pissarro, the painter of the countryside, did not ignore the men and women who live and labour on the soil. Peasants, working at their various tasks, enter largely into his pictures : 1874, Femme gardant une vache ; 1878, La Lessive ; 1881, Le Berger ; 1886, La cueillette des pommes; 1892, La Causette ; 1894, La cueillette des pois a Eragny. Besides his paintings in oil, he executed a number of drawings in body-colour ; and while, in his landscapes, figures occur only incidentally, his body-colour draw- ings are composed almost exclusively of peasants, either singly or in groups. For a proper knowledge of Pissarro as a painter of rural life, it is necessary, therefore, to study his drawings in body-colour. When at first he began to paint peasants, he was accused of imitating Millet. At this period Millet was scarcely understood ; he was violently attacked for the naturalistic character of his work; and Pissarro, by the sole fact that he also had begun to \ //c/ wards entirely ignored. Pissarro had shunned the Parisian ateliers, and had at once begun to paint directly from nature. He, in parti- ^- ^ cular, portrayed men and women as he saw them, with a simplicity *• l-f& of method and a direct truth of observation greater than had been known before. His peasants, therefore, have none of that super- imposed grandeur with which Millet, still in part under the influence of the spirit of his time, never failed to endow them. Pissarro aptly defined the quality which separated his art from that 134 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS of Millet's. Writing to me in March 1881 he said : " They are all throwing Millet at my head. But Millet was biblical ! It is curious ; but, for a Hebrew, I don't seem to have much of that quality in me." Pissarro's peasants are real peasants. They are not derived from any preconceived theory. They are neither idealised nor degraded. They appear in the natural attitudes proper to the peasant, with the bodily movements, the expression of the face, the gestures, which their laborious life upon the land has given them. They are painted in the act of performing all their various labours and occupations. They present, with a certain artless charm, a sincere picture of life upon the land. The Impressionists were essentially painters; they paid little attention to engraving. Pissarro is the only one who produced a considerable amount of engraved work. Lucien Pissarro has drawn up a catalogue of his father's etchings in which 104 works are described. His earlier productions include Une rue a Mont- martre in 1865, and the Portrait de Cezanne in 1874 ; but it was not until 1879 that he began to study with the utmost assiduity all the various processes of etching. From that time his productions became numerous, and were characterised by a knowledge of technique and a breadth of form which had been lacking in his earlier efforts. The important change in the character of his engraved work was due to the intervention of Degas. Degas had conceived the idea of a publication called Le Jour et la Nuit, in which he secured the collaboration of Pissarro, JBracquemond, Mile. Cassatt, and Raffaelli. He was himself engaged in experimenting in the most subtle and complicated methods, with the object of producing novel effects, and the others were led to emulate his example. Pissarro, after long toil and continuous experiment, produced his contribu- tion to Le Jour et la Nuit, now described in the catalogue of his works as Paysage sous bois a f Hermitage, pres Pontoise. It is a landscape seen through trees, whose trunks and branches occupy the whole of the foreground. It is a species of etching in which the work of the needle plays only a subordinate part. PISSARRO 135 But though Le Jour et la Nuit met with no success and its publication had to be abandoned, Degas' project had introduced Pissarro to a new process, which soon became very congenial to him. Rouen, a town for which he had a kind of predilection, suggested to him a number of subjects for his etchings. The etchings of Rouen, twenty-four in all, depict the ancient streets in all their decay ; they convey a sense of forlorn solitude— they may even be said to suggest the sensation of dampness and mould. But the principal part of his engraved work is devoted to rural life. In his etchings the labourers in the fields are rendered with the same sincerity as in his oil-paintings and his body-colour drawings. There they stand, with their bodies deformed by toil, in the painful attitudes which prolonged strain has enforced upon them, yet somehow giving the suggestion of labour honestly and cheerfully accomplished. Two large blocks are to be noted for their power and for the feeling of movement which they impart to a crowd : Le Marche de la volatile, and Le Marche aux legumes a Pontoise, executed in 1891. Pissarro could when he chose portray other types than that of the peasant; his Portrait de Cezanne in 1874 is full of life, and admirably renders his air of solitude and introspection. He also engraved his own portrait ; he portrayed himself just as he was, without any added dignity — an old man in spectacles, with a long beard, full of years, older in appearance than he was in reality. He also practised lithography, making some early essays about 1874, but not taking it up seriously until 1896 ; the forty ex- amples which he produced after that date constitute practically the whole of his work in this branch of engraving. The subjects are similar to those of his etchings — views of Rouen, Paris, and rural subjects. In his lithographic work he displayed the same aptitude for experimenting in different methods, which is to be seen in all the processes that he made use of. The lithographs are obtained either by drawings made directly upon stone or plates of zinc, or by drawings made upon paper and then traced on stone. He has also made use of washes on stone for a series of lithographs of bathers. This method gives great delicacy to THE IMPRESSIONISTS « __!.,. w-i^vnTYillVTVlT .Mr, 136 MANET AND TH^ permitting a very acteristic manner, a » feeling which inspires them. CHAPTER XIV CLAUDE MONET CLAUDE OSCAR MONET was born in Paris on the 14th of Novem- ber 1840. His father was a merchant at Le Havre. It was at Le Havre, therefore, that he spent his youth and there that he first felt the impulse urging him towards art. The first painter that he knew was Boudin, older than himself by fifteen years. He gave Monet advice and acted as his guide in matters of art. The friendship which was to unite the two men for many years began in 1855. Monet worked side by side with Boudin, and exhibited for the first time in his life at an exhibition at Rouen in 1856, in which Boudin also was represented. The picture was a landscape, painted in the valley of Rouelles, near Monti villiers. Monet"s artistic tendencies led to a disagreement with his parents. They wished to keep him with them in the business, and when his time came to serve in the army, they declared them- selves ready to purchase his exemption from military service, which at that time was possible, but only on condition that he should abandon painting. Rather than consent to this condition, Monet preferred to serve his time in the army. Accordingly he joined a regiment in Algiers and stayed there nearly two years. He suffered considerably from the climate ; his state of health compelled his parents to take the steps to secure his discharge. They then consented that he should give himself up entirely to painting, but they stipulated that he should enter the atelier of one of the famous painters in Paris and there pursue those regular studies which, in their opinion, formed an indispensable apprenticeship to art. Hence it was- that in 1862 he became the pupil of Gleyre. Monet hated work of the academic kind ; he did not feel 1ST 138 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS himself in sympathy with Gleyre; he passed through the studio without deriving any profit from it and having almost ceased to frequent it, he left it at the end of a year. His natural preference led him towards landscape painting. It was now that a decisive event in his career took place. In 1863 he made the discovery of the work that had already been produced by Manet. In seeing the fourteen canvases which Manet was exhibiting at Martinet's in the Boulevard des Italiens, he was suddenly confronted with a luminous painting, in which bold, bright colours were laid side by side without the usual accompaniment of conventional shadows. He was fascinated from the very first by this fearless innovation. Until that day he had painted like the other daring young men of his time, in a scheme akin to that of Corot and Courbet ; and his first attempts, compared with what he was to produce after the revelation of Manet's work, would to-day be considered sombre in tone. Accordingly Monet promptly appropriated the new technique of bright tones, at the same time adapting it to landscape. At first, however, he did not paint landscapes exclusively ; his early works include large figure pictures painted in the open air or in the studio, and not infrequently he introduced figures into his land- scapes. Thus, in 1866, he painted a Dejeuner sur therbe, very different from that of Manet exhibited in the Salon des refuses in 1863, but nevertheless reminiscent of it; and again in 1868 a Dejeuner dans un interieur, a group of large-sized figures round a table covered with dishes of various kinds. His most notable figure pictures, however, are unquestionably Camille, exhibited in the Salon of 1866, and La Japonnaise, a girl in Japanese costume, wearing an expansive red dress. After this date his preference for landscape became quite predominant, and he almost entirely abandoned figure painting. Now that it is possible to consider his work in perspective, the force of the impulse that led him away from figure painting towards landscape may readily be recognised. It is obvious from a con- sideration of his early pictures in which figures are introduced, that his treatment of the faces and the expression was quite perfunctory, that in themselves they did not interest him, and that consequently, CLAUDE MOXET 139 in ceasing to paint them, he discarded no essential element of his art. It was, in fact, the costume that attracted him ; he introduced it into his pictures in order to secure harmonies of colour and effects of light. In those magnificent pieces of painting, Camitte and La Japonnaise, the important feature is the costume, not the face. In Camillf the green and black stripes of the skirt produce a delightful combination of colour; and in La Japonnaise the brilliant red of the dress, with its embroidery in relief, and the parti-coloured fens on the floor, constitute the real motive of the picture. Monet therefore abandoned figure painting, which had been only an incidental phase in his early work, and devoted himself wholly to landscape. He made it his rule to paint his landscapes directly in the open air. Whatever their dimensions, he com- pleted them with the scene which he wished to represent im- mediately before his eyes. This practice led to one fruitful result, which is to be found afterwards in the works of other painters, but in none with such striking emphasis as in those of Monet. In every {scene of nature, it led him to seize just that particular aspect, that fugitive notation of light or of colour, under which he saw nature at the moment when he was painting it His land- scapes, therefore, do not represent nature as wearing an unchang- ing mask, with rigid and permanent features ; the framework, the skeleton, so to speak, of the scene which he wished to portray is delineated on his canvas simply for the purpose of investing it with that fleeting charm, that particular envelopment of atmos- phere, which he seined and noted as an ephemeral effect in the brief moment of its duration. For example, he begins to paint a landscape in the morning, at sunrise, when the earth is covered with mist ; he will note on the canvas the reflected light that the rising sun throws over the land- scape and the mist which enshrouds it. And, since he only paints any effect just so long as it actually exists before his eyes, if he wishes to record the effect of the rising sun and the early mist, be will be able to work at his picture only for a brief space of time in the morning. He will hare to abandon it as soon as the gyn has risen above the horizon and the mist has dispersed; he will 140 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS to return to it at some subsequent period, when the momentary effect, which he wished to seize, occurs again. For him, therefore, the aspect of a landscape has no continuous duration, its colour no permanence. The appearance of nature changes with the change of the seasons, of the days, of the hours of the day, of the condi- tions of temperature and light. Under these circumstances, Monet became able to fix on the canvas those fleeting appearances which had escaped the older landscape painters working in the studio. He pursued so closely the varied effects and changes which take place in the open air, that he was able to communicate the very sensations which they evoke. His sunshine warms; his snow makes us shiver. Thus he succeeded in disengaging from the scene before him all manner of subtle effects — pure impressions. It was therefore quite natural that one day he should give to one of his canvases in which the sun is seen through mist over the sea, the title, Impres- sion : soldi levant. And it was also quite natural that, when this picture was seen, the word Impression, in its transformed and extended sense, should have been found the fitting designation for his art. It was therefore the characteristics of Monet's work which gave birth to the names Impressionist and Impressionism. He is the true founder of Impressionism. In him Impressionism found its most complete formula. Monet advanced without ever deviating from the path upon which he originally entered. In all places he painted in the open air ; he proceeded uninterruptedly to put into his canvases ever brighter colours and more sparkling light. He left Paris at an early period, and went to live at Argenteuil. There he remained for several years, painting the Seine and its banks, and also the flowers and clumps of bushes in his garden. Driven from Argenteuil by the German occupation at the time of the- siege, he sought refuge in Holland. There he painted views of the canals. At this time he became acquainted with Japanese colour-prints, particularly those of Hiroshige, which compelled his admiration. Under the influence of their vibrant colour, his palette became still brighter. In certain of his pictures, especially in some of those executed in Holland, the use of vivid tones laid boldly •4 u _ _ 4} (H CLAUDE MONET 141 side by side, indicates his study of Japanese methods. He paid another visit to Holland, at a later period, and painted tulips in flower at Haarlem. From Holland he passed to England, early in 1871. In London he painted views of the Thames and the parks. On his return to France after the war and the Commune, he again took up his residence at Argenteuil, and once more began to paint the banks of the Seine. He also painted at Paris, in 1877 and 1878, the thickets in the Pare Monceau and the Gare Saint - Lazare, with its engines wreathed in clouds of steam. He frequently returned to Le Havre where he had spent his youth, and to the adjacent coast where he had first begun to paint. Over and over again he painted views of Le Havre, Sainte-Adresse, Honfleur, and the cliffs of Normandy. In 1864, 1866, 1867, he worked in Le Havre and the neighbourhood. There he met Boudin again and also spent some time in company with Courbet, who was at Trouville painting what he called " sea-landscapes." He returned to the same places in 1873, 1874, and 1882. In 1885 he was at Etretat. There he painted the cliffs with their escarp- ments and sloping hollows, and the sea in every variety of mood. He was in truth the painter of water. He introduced into his pictures the waters of the Channel and the Mediterranean, the Seine and Thames, the canals of Holland and the ponds in his gardens. He always lived on the banks of the Seine, in order to be near the water. In 1878 he left Argenteuil, and went lower down the river to Ve"theuil. There he painted the Seine and the surrounding country as he had done at Argenteuil. There also, in the excep- tionally severe winter of 1879-1880, he painted the ice which covered the river; some of his most striking canvases are those showing the break-up of the ice after the thaw. In 1884 he went to the Mediterranean coast for the first time, and spent several months at Bordighera. Hitherto he had been familiar only with the hazy atmosphere round Paris and on the coast of the Channel, but after diligent efforts he rendered admirably the transparent sky, the azure sea, and brightly coloured soil of the south. In 1886 he was at Belle-Isle. There he executed one of the 142 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS most powerful of his series of pictures— that which has for its subject the dark rocks and vast cliffs, rugged and worn with the V action of the surf. In 1886 he left Ve'theuil, and went still lower down the river into the valley of the Seine. He took up what proved to be his permanent abode at Giverny, near Vernon. His house is situated on the banks of the Epte, whose meadows, thick with poplars, march with those of the Seine. He takes his subjects from the country round Giverny, as previously he had painted the neigh- bourhood of Argenteuil and Ve'theuil. He returned to the shores of the Mediterranean in the winter of 1884, staying this time at Antibes. There, thanks to the experi- ence that he had learnt at Bordighera, he painted landscapes of great transparency, flooded with light. In 1889 he went to paint at Vervit in La Creuse. In 1895 he visited Norway, at the end of the winter, when the ground was still covered with snow. He brought back several pictures executed in the neighbourhood of Christiana. With the continuous development of his originality, Monet's art entered into a new phase. For a long time, like his pre- decessors in landscape painting, Monet had varied the subject in each picture ; each one of his canvases had been a particular repre- sentation of a particular scene. But, since every time he painted from nature his real motive was the impression, the fugitive aspect, he gradually came to repeat the same subject several times, without changing his point of view, and yet every time producing an entirely different picture. The basis of the scene, the structural lines of the landscape, were only a kind of framework on which to (Superimpose a variety of aspects and impressions — grey weather or burning sun, morning, noontide and evening effects — which became in themselves the essential motive of the picture. He began to expand and to systematise this practice of painting the same subject several times, changing nothing but the transitory effects. Here he was to find the logical conclusion of the methods of Impressionism. His art reached the full measure of its expansion in the reproduction of selected subjects in series of ten, twelve, or fifteen canvases. CLAUDE MONET 143 O-*- Monet began his systematic painting of series with Les Meules \ in 1890-91. He took up his position in front of the hayricks in the middle of a field, arid proceeded to paint them a great number of times, without modifying the fundamental lines of the subject, and ; yet each time obtaining a different picture. In effect, he transfixed ' on each canvas one of the several varieties of colour, one of the several modifications of aspect, which are produced by the changes in the atmosphere and the differences in the seasons and the hours of the day. Thus the hayricks in themselves have no value as a motive, they only become the motive when they have been clothed with those transient effects which they derive from external causes. The series has received the generic name of Hayricks, but if it is sought to particularise each picture by some distinctive title, they ought to be called : hayricks in the morning, hayricks in the even- ing, hayricks in grey weather, hayricks in full sunlight, hayricks in snow, etc. The facade of Rouen Cathedral, with its towers, provided Monet with his second series. Taking up his station at a window of a house opposite the cathedral, he spent a long time in painting it. Like the hayricks, it offered him a theme which allowed him to reproduce all those multitudinous effects which play upon the same object when seen under different conditions. It appeared to him involved in reflected lights, ranging from dull greys to warm sunlight, all of which he rendered in their copious variety. In order to paint under these conditions, Monet was obliged to work at several canvases simultaneously, passing from one to the other, leaving them and returning to them according as the particular effect which he wished to seize disappeared and re- appeared with the variations of the atmosphere. The first consideration which these completed series suggested, whether Les Meules or La Cathedrale, was that Monet had in a way simplified his task by indefinitely repeating the same sub- ject and that, after two or three essays, he must have succeeded in suppressing the difficulties in rendering it. It was thought, therefore, that his object in executing his series was to facilitate his task, to obtain the greatest possible number of pictures with the least amount of effort. In fact, the reverse was the case. 144 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS After he began to paint in series, he really produced fewer can- vases than before, in spite of additional labour. He found that to paint different scenes, once for all, was an easier thing than to execute numerous repetitions of the same scene viewed under different aspects. To seize, in passing, the variations in aspect which the same scene assumes at different moments, and to fix them on the canvas with precision, is an extremely delicate opera- tion, demanding special faculties and a vision of a quite exceptional order. Painting of this kind necessitates the pursuit of what are in effect abstractions. It is necessary to be able to disengage the fugitive motive from the unchanging groundwork and to do it with rapidity, for the different effects to be seized overlap one another, and if the eye does not arrest them as they pass, they flow into one another. I have heard Monet say that the labour of painting Rouen Cathedral under the varied effects of light demanded such intense application of mind that he became utterly exhausted. He ended by losing a clear perception of things. He was obliged to stop and to remain for a long time without looking at his canvases, because he was no longer able to judge of their value. Monet's series include very varied motives. After Les Meules and La Cathedrale he painted Les Peupliers. While walking among the meadows at Giverny, he saw a long and sinuous line of poplars, which, when seen from certain points of view, sil- houetted themselves against one another. He proceeded to paint them. He discovered that the arrangement which the Giverny poplars gave him was analogous to one which Hiroshige had previously met with in Japan — the line of cedars which he has reproduced in one of his " Fifty-four Views of Tokaido." Monet must have been struck by the analogy between the Giverny pop- lars and the cedars of Hiroshige — a curious case of the work of one great artist influencing another through a suggestion of nature. He also painted a series of Une Matinee sur la Seine : an arm of the river shrouded in mist and bordered with large, bushy trees, reflected in the calm water. This was followed by the Nympheas series. At the end of his garden at Giverny, at the edge of the z o 7. c H 2 a o pg CLAUDE MONET 145 meadows, Monet had made a pond, which he had sown with water-lilies. The flowers and their leaves, bosomed on the water, provided him with a new motive, which was completed by the trees bordering the pond and the little bridge which spanned it. Following upon this, he made a brief visit to Vetheuil, where he had so long lived and painted, in order to execute another of his series. He took up a position in front of the village, on the opposite bank of the Seine. The water of the river occupies the foreground of these pictures, then the village with its church rises above the bank, which forms the bounding line of the horizon. In two following series, Vues de la Tamise and Effets d'eau (the latter painted from the pond in his garden at Giverny), Athe characteristics of his individuality are carried to the extreme ' point of their development. Hitherto in his pictures the impres- sion, the fugitive effect, the ephemeral aspect had formed primarily the envelope, the investiture, of an underlying scene, which had a \jeal existence as a fundamental part of the whole. But in these two new series the ephemeral appearances existed in and for them- selves, while the unchanging framework of the actual scene was in a measure sacrificed and relegated to the degree of an accessory. The Thames interested him principally by its random reflections, the evanescent coloration of water and atmosphere. The lumi- nous effects of the clouds, of the smoke-coloured fog, of the morning or twilight mists, became the raison d'etre of the pictures and formed the centre of interest. These views of the Thames, which may be called atmospheric, were executed during different visits to London, from 1901 to 1904. iSome kind of framework, however, was necessary upon which the colour-scheme could be imposed ; accordingly Waterloo Bridge formed the motive of one series, and the bridge at Charing Cross that of another— both seen from the Savoy Hotel, which dominates the Thames from the Strand. A third motive was provided by the Houses of Parliament with their towers, seen from St. Thomas's Hospital on the opposite bank of the river. In that series which had for its subject the pond in his garden, the water in itself has only a secondary importance, the interest is centred 146 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS in the flashes of light which play upon its surface. The principal effect is produced by reflected objects with their wavering outlines, which give a suggestion of movement and agitation. Monet, with his regular habits of working in the open air, was as alert and active at sixty-eight as ever he had been, and ready to undertake new enterprises. Once more, making one of those characteristically sudden resolutions, he left Normandy for the South. This time he went to Venice. He arrived at the end of the summer of 1908, and stayed there all the autumn. There he painted three series. The first, which may be called the summer series, has for its motive the Grand Canal, the church of La Salute, and the houses with their coloured posts in the back- ground. A second series was painted from the church of St. George and the Customs House opposite the town, and shows part of the Square of St. Mark and the Ducal Palace. Finally, a third series, painted in a boat on the Grand Canal, deals with certain of the palaces which border the canal. The later pictures, executed in the autumn, gave Monet scope once again to turn to account his unique qualities as an impressionist painter. Like the views of the Thames at London, they may be called "atmospheric"; the play of atmosphere is the most important interest in the picture. Venice in the autumn appears in a kind of pearl grey ; the southern light is softened by the humidity which rises from the sea and from the surrounding marsh lands. Tintoretto was the first to note this peculiar grey of Venice ; Monet perceived it in his turn, and gave it admirable rendering on his canvas. In these last series of the Thames at London, of the pond at Giverny, and of Venice, Impressionism found the extreme reach of its attainment. Painting which has arrived at this degree of fluidity in some measure approaches music, executing variations upon a theme of colour analogous to those of sound. Monet thus reached that last degree of abstraction and imagination allied with reality, of which the art of landscape is capable. In describing Monet's evolution as a painter, and in relating the order in which his work was produced, all the important features in his biography have been touched upon. His life was CLAUDE MONET 147 centred in his art. Besides his changes of residence and his travels in search of fresh scenes to paint, the interesting events in con- nection with his career are the exhibitions in which his struggle for recognition was fought out. He first submitted his work to the Salon in 18G5, when the two seascapes which he had sent were accepted. This was the year in which Manet made so great a sensation with his Olympia. He was completely ignorant of the existence of Monet, who was eight years younger than himself and as yet quite unknown. He discovered the two seascapes in the Salon, and, noticing that they were signed with a name almost identical with his own, he thought that Monet had been guilty of a kind of plagiarism. At first he was somewhat annoyed, and asked irritably of those who were with him, " Who is this Monet ? He appears to have appropriated my name with a view to bene- fiting by all the stir that's being made about me." When Monet heard of this he was very careful always to couple his Christian name, Claude, with his surname, in order to prevent confusion with his quasi-namesake. In 1866 he was represented in the Salon by Camille and a forest scene at Barbizon. His work was rejected at the Salon of 1867, accepted at that of 1868, again rejected in 1869 and 1870. This uncertainty of being accepted at the Salon becoming greater as his originality developed and ending at last in the certainty of being rejected, led him to take the initiative in holding inde- pendent exhibitions. Together with his friends he availed himself freely of this absence of restrictions, and by the cumulative effect of their work, as that of a group, they were able to attract the attention of the public. Thus to the first four exhibitions of the Impressionists, those of 1874, 1876, 1877, and 1879, he sent a large number of works, which brought him prominently into view ; but at the same time his work was condemned and despised. In their effort to make themselves known, the Impressionists had raised up the world against them. The few partisans who endeavoured to defend them, the three or four dealers who had the temerity to offer their works, were like men crying in the wilder- ness. They were unable to get a hearing. Impressionist pictures became unsaleable. These were years of distress and misery — the 148 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS heroic age of Impressionism. Monet shared the common fate. He experienced the most acute financial embarrassment. He was obliged to reduce the price of his pictures to a hundred francs, and it was only with great difficulty that he was able to sell enough to keep himself from absolute ruin. The sale which took place after Daubigny's death showed the contempt in which Monet's work was held. In 1873 Daubigny bought one of Monet's views of Holland, Canal a Saardam, from M. Durand-Ruel for 500 francs. At that time, before the famous exhibitions of 1874, 1876, and 1877, which prejudiced public opinion against the Impressionists, M. Duvand-Ruel suc- ceeded, up to a certain point, in finding purchasers for their works. Daubigny died in 1878, and the sale of his effects was announced to take place in May of that year. The Canal a Saardam appeared to me to be one of the finest things that Monet had done, and I determined to bid for it. The sale was held, but there was no trace of the picture. 1 supposed that Daubigny's heirs, appreciating its worth, did not wish to part with it. Happening to visit the Hotel Drouot a fortnight later, I came across a room full of unfinished sketches, old canvases, some of them barely rubbed over with colour, others covered with dirt, together with a pile of easels, palettes, brushes, lying on the floor — in short, all the paraphernalia of a studio ; and there all by itself was Claude Monet's Canal a Saardam. I turned it over on its back. There was no name on the label. I made inquiries, and found that I had stumbled across the scourings of Daubigny's studio, which were being offered anonymously as things of which the ownership was better con- cealed. It was among these that Daubigny's heirs had put Monet's picture, because in their opinion it would have disgraced the official sale of his effects. I obtained it for eighty francs. When in 1894 circumstances led me to sell my collection, M. Durand-Ruel secured the Canal a Saardam for the sum of 5500 francs. He resold it to M. Decap, who, when he was putting a part of his collection up to auction in 1901, withdrew it at 30,000 francs. If the picture does not find a resting-place in one of the public galleries, it will be interesting to see to what price it will rise in future sales. o 6 CLAUDE MONET 149 Monet's sudden leap into public favour dates from the exhibition of fifty-six of his works in 1881 in the Boulevard de la Madeleine. It was visited by large numbers of people, who came this time not to laugh but to admire. With the lapse of years a new generation had arisen who had become familiar with Monet's work. It no longer inspired them with that sensation of astonishment and disgust which the previous generation, who had been taken un- awares as it were, had experienced. In 1889, twenty-eight years after Monet's first Salon and fifteen after the first Impressionist exhibition, the change which had taken place in his favour received a striking recognition. In that year he held an exhibition, in con- junction with Rodin, in which 145 canvases, selected from the whole of his work, were on view. It was a decisive test. A glance at the catalogue containing the names of the persons who had lent pictures, served to show how numerous were the collectors who possessed his works. The criticisms in the press proved that the younger writers had now learned to appreciate the new art. Many of the visitors were converted, and even those who remained hostile were more or less impressed, and had to confess that the works which they saw there revealed considerable power. This exhibition had an almost impressive character, and made it clear how time had worked in Monet's favour. It definitely marked the close of the period of struggle and the beginning of the period of success. Monet was a Parisian who forsook Paris. He was always in- different to social success, and to the thirst for fame and notoriety which forms one of the elements of Parisian life. Working under the open sky, following his art in the solitude of fields and cliffs and by the side of placid waters, he conceived a disgust for the innumerable petty cares of town life. His visits to Paris became more and more infrequent. Finally he abandoned them altogether, except when urgent business compelled him to make a brief stay there. From 1866 he resided successively at Argenteuil, \re"theuil, and Giverny, thus removing farther and farther away from Paris ; he made it his practice to live in the midst of nature, with the open sky and the enveloping light always over and around him. At Giverny he has indulged himself with the luxury of a garden full of flowers, which glow with a variety of different colours 150 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS according to the different seasons. His artist's eye finds delight in the pageant of colour. In this respect he resembles Whistler, who covered the walls and panelling of his house with harmonious colours agreeable to the eye ; only with this difference that, whereas Whistler, the townsman, applied the decoration to the interior of his house, Monet, the man of the open air, displays the colour in his garden. Monet's force of character enabled him to support times of trial and poverty with fortitude. Success, when it arrived, did not disturb his equanimity. He never took advantage of it to endeavour to obtain those honours which so many artists run after, and in particular, he refused to allow himself to be decorated with the Legion d'honneur. He was always a generous friend to his fellow Impressionists. Nobody extolled Degas, Pissarro, Cezanne, Renoir, and Sisley more warmly than he. He never ceased to express his great admiration for Manet, or to acknow- ledge his indebtedness to him at the beginning of his career. He took the initiative in raising the subscription, in 1890, by means of which Manet's Olympia was secured for the Luxembourg. For more than a year, until the undertaking was carried to a successful issue, he devoted time and labour to taking the neces- sary steps, first in collecting the sum of 20,000 francs, and then in securing the acceptance of the picture by the authori- ties. When in the " affaire Dreyfus," Zola came forward to defend the accused, Monet from the very first was one of those who publicly gave him their support, although at a time when such action roused the fury of the whole country. Neither before nor afterwards did he ever interfere in public affairs, but in this instance, believing it to be every man's duty to take a part in the combat, he unhesitatingly ranged himself on the side which seemed to him to be that of justice and truth. CHAPTER XV SISLEY ALFRED SISLEV was born in Paris on October 30, 1839, of Eng- lish parentage. His father was a merchant, established in Paris, with a business connection in South America. He was a wealthy man, and gave his children, two sons and two daughters, a good education. When his son Alfred reached the age of eighteen, he sent him to England to perfect his knowledge of English and to receive a commercial training. The young man, however, showed no inclination for business. On his return to Paris, being strongly attracted towards painting, he succeeded in entering Gleyre's studio. It was there, in 1862, that he met Claude Monet, Bazille and Renoir, and entered into a close friend- ship with them. He had not originally intended to make painting his profession. His position at first was simply that of a man of independent means, who takes up painting merely as an agreeable accomplish- ment. His friends, Claude Monet and Renoir, from the outset painted pictures in order to gain their livelihood ; compared with them, Sisley was late in beginning to produce work. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1866 ; again in 1868 he showed some landscapes conceived and executed, as those of nearly all the younger emancipated artists of the time, in the tonality of Corot or of Courbet. In these early years he produced very few works. In 1870, during the war, his father fell ill; a business crisis involved him in heavy losses which led to his ruin, and shortly afterwards to his death. Alfred Sisley, who until this time had been brought up as the son of a wealthy family, suddenly found himself with no other resources than those which he could procure by his art. After 1870, therefore, he gave himself up entirely to 151 152 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS painting ; henceforth he had to depend upon it for the means of existence of himself and his family, for he was married and had children. At this time his friend Claude Monet, under the initial influence of Manet, had adopted and developed the system of painting in bright tones, and had applied it to landscape, working always directly from nature. Sisley himself appropriated this technique ; he painted in the open air, employing a bright scale of colour. Herein is an instance of the way in which artists sensitive to new impressions react upon one another in their formative period — Manet influencing Monet, and Monet in turn influencing Sisley. But it is necessary to repeat that it was not a case of mechanical or servile imitation, but of the interchange among men of profoundly independent temperament, who were seeking a means of expres- sion, of an initial formula, which never involved any surrender of individuality of character. Indeed, if Claude Monet and Sisley may to some extent be separated from the rest of the Impressionist group, if they have certain points in common which they do not share with the others, each nevertheless preserved his own person- ality intact — each has his own quality of colour, his own way of seeing and feeling. Of Sisley it may be said that his characteristic feature was his power of expressing the smiling mood of nature. There is a seductive charm in his work. In the feeling which pervades it, it approaches that of Corot. Sisley was sensitive to the enchantment of nature. He was diligent in seeking, preferably in landscape, those kindly and intimate motives most in accord with the sensa- tions which he felt and wished to express. Hence he is the landscapist among the Impressionists most preferred by those of sensitive perceptions who, in works of art, look for an emotion corresponding with their own temperament. He painted especially rivers with their transparent waters and leafy banks, the country gay with spring flowers or bathed in summer sunshine. His work, moreover, is very various ; it embraces views of towns and villages, and again snow effects, in which he showed great mastery. He exhibited at the Salon for the last time in 1870, and then with the Impressionists in 1874, 1876, and 1877. His originality was principally shown in a novel and unexpected coloration, which was u z CO •£ J SISLEY 153 generally condemned. He was accused of painting in an artificial lilac-coloured tone. Nowadays everybody is accustomed to see landscape painters employing the boldest tones in their rendering of effects of light ; Sisley's colour scheme, therefore, seems abso- lutely calm and perfectly correct. But when it was first seen it was judged to be false. At that time the public was not even yet reconciled to the still greyer tonalty of Corot, of Courbet, and of Jongkind. Sisley's works, which, together with those of his friends the Impressionists, displayed the variation of colour which the play of light and the change of seasons, of days and of hours of the day, give to natural scenes, proved disconcerting to those who looked at his pictures. In particular, he rendered effects of bright sun- light by means of a rose-tinted lilac hue ; to-day this effect appears exceedingly felicitous, suggesting just the sensation of gladness and delicacy which he wished to express, but at its first appearance it seemed altogether an anomaly. Hence the unfortunate Sisley was subjected to all manner of bitter attacks and insult before he was to see the delicate charm of his painting understood and appreciated. Now that his other resources had failed, it became necessary for Sisley to support himself entirely by his painting. He found the task almost impossible. He and his friends conceived the idea of holding public sales in order to dispose of their pictures. Two sales by auction at the Hotel Drouot were organised, the first on March 24, 1875, the second on May 28, 1877. To the first Sisley contributed twenty-one canvases, which together realised only 2455 francs, an average of a little more than 100 francs each. Two of them, it is true, of large dimensions, reached the price of 200 francs ; and one, Barrage de la Tamise, a Hampton Court, touched the extraordinarily high figure of 300 francs. At the same sale Claude Monet had offered twenty pictures, which averaged from two to three hundred francs each. At the sale of 1877, eleven canvases by Sisley produced only the meagre total of 1387 francs. These sales were in reality disastrous. As Sisley parted with his best pictures for barely 100 francs apiece, out of which the expenses of the sale had to be deducted, they scarcely helped 154 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS to alleviate his distress. Moreover, at the sale of 1877, following upon the Impressionist exhibition of the same year, which had excited general disgust, the public greeted the pictures which were put up to auction with shouts of laughter and groans of contempt ; the painters, therefore, deemed it useless to hold any further sales, seeing that in so doing they only exposed themselves to public humiliation for the sake of a purely negligible profit. Sisley was compelled to eke out a living from the small sums which he obtained by selling his pictures to his friends. In these years when their works were absolutely unappreciated, all the Impres- sionists passed through a period of distress ; but Sisley was the most unfortunate ; he suffered more acutely than they all. Cdzanne lived on an allowance from his father. Monet and Pissarro, who were first in the field, had had time to form a cer- tain connection, and although it was very small, yet, during these lean years, the price of their pictures never fell below 100 francs. Sisley was the last of the Impressionists ; he arrived at a time when it was no longer possible to establish a special clientele ; consequently he found himself so destitute that he was reduced to give away his small canvases for twenty-five or thirty francs. These prices were lower than those that Pissarro and Cezanne ever knew ; in no case did their pictures realise less than forty francs. When Sisley's fortunes were at their lowest ebb, among the few people who lent him assistance was a certain restaurant pro- prietor called Murer. Thrown upon his own resources when quite young, he had become apprentice to a pastry-cook. Later on he acquired a business of his own. He kept a confectioner's shop in the Boulevard Voltaire, to which he had added a restau- rant. He regarded his business, however, merely as an unpleasant necessity, and hoped eventually to be quit of it. His tastes were all for literature and art ; in fact, afterwards, when he had retired and was in easy circumstances, he both wrote novels and painted pictures. While he was still a restaurant proprietor, he had come to know the Impressionists through Guillaumin, the friend of his early days, when both lived at Moulins, his native town. When the years of distress came upon the Impressionists, and the ques- SISLEY 155 tion of how to live became a pressing problem, Murer on cer- tain days provided them with free meals at his restaurant. Sisley and Renoir were the two who availed themselves most readily of this accommodation. When the number of lunches and dinners reached a certain limit, he took a picture in payment. He bought a certain number of others in addition, at the current rate ; the prices appear exceedingly low to-day, but nobody at that time, with the exception of a few friends, was willing to pay them. Thus Murer was one of the first to recognise the merit of the Impressionists and to form a collection of their works ; he was also one of those who helped them to live in this time of their greatest distress, while they were waiting for the advent of better days. Sisley's letters reveal his state of mind during this period of general hostility and prolonged poverty. The limit of his ambi- tion was simply to find the means of obtaining 100 francs for his pictures ; this was the utmost they had fetched when put up to auction, and even this figure was now unattainable. In one of his letters to me in 1878 he wrote as follows: "Among your friends in Saintonge could you not find a man of intelli- gence, who would have enough confidence in your artistic judg- ment for you to persuade him that he would not be doing a bad stroke of business in laying out some money in the purchase of pictures by a painter who is on the point of arriving. If you know of such a man, you might make the following proposition to him on my behalf: 500 francs a month, for six months, for thirty canvases. ... It is important for me not to let the summer pass away without doing any serious work, without pre- occupations, in order that I may turn out good stuff, for I am sure that the result would justify the outlay. At the present moment a very little would suffice to give me a helping hand." It is to Sisley's praise that, even in his worst distress, he never con- templated abandoning the course upon which he had set out, or attempting to win the favour of the public by making the least concessions to it. He persisted in adhering to his own indi- vidual manner, although it condemned him to poverty. It was the very manifestation of his personality ; it corresponded with 156 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS what his own judgment bade him recognise as right, and he held to it consistently, whatever the cost. Sisley always lived in the neighbourhood of Paris — before the war at Louveciennes and Bougival, afterwards, until 1875, at Voisins and Marly. To these years belong the pictures which he painted of the Seine at Port Marly or in the immediate vicinity, and the landscapes of which the orchard-covered slopes of Louveciennes formed the subject. From 1875 to 1879 he lived at Sevres. There he painted views of the Seine and its banks near Meudon and Saint-Cloud. In 1879 he took a house near Moret, and then at Moret itself, where he lived until his death. Moret and the banks of the Loing furnished him with an infinite variety of subjects. Everybody who is familiar with Sisley's work knows Moret with its bridge, its church, its mills, and the houses on the riverside. In 1874 M. Faure, the baritone at the Opera, took him to England. He brought back with him views of the Thames at Hampton Court. In 1894 he painted in Normandy, round about Rouen. In 1897 he stayed from May to October at Longlang and Pennart, on the Welsh coast, near to Swansea and Cardiff. There he painted the cliffs and the sea. Sisley, who spoke English fluently, had special facilities for working in Eng- land, but he very rarely took advantage of them. He was essen- tially French in his manners, tastes, and ideas ; in England he always felt himself to be in a foreign country. Nevertheless he remained an English subject by the fact of his parentage. In 1895 he wished to become a naturalised Frenchman; he took the necessary steps, but as he was unable to produce certain family documents which were demanded, the matter fell through, and he retained his English nationality until his death. He died of cancer at Moret on January 29, 1899. Sisley did not live to see any real change of fortune take place in his favour. Until his last day he remained in straitened cir- cumstances, although at the end his prospects improved, and he sold his pictures more readily. Moreover, a certain satisfaction came to him from another quarter. In 1879 he entertained the idea of again exhibiting at the official Salon, but almost immedi- tt O Q CO Z S w SISLEY 157 ately abandoned it. In 1890, however, the Socicte nationale dex Beaux-Arts was formed, seceding from the Societc des Artistes Franfais, which continued to hold the official Salons. The new society inaugurated an exhibition of its own, a kind of second Salon, in the Champ-de-Mars, and extended a warm welcome to Sisley. He exhibited there in 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, each time showing seven or eight canvases. It was a substantial advantage for him thus to appear in prominent exhibitions which attracted the general public ; it gave his work a kind of relative sanction. Finally, by a change as sudden as it was profound, the homage which had been denied to Sisley in his lifetime was rendered to him after his death. It is well known that nothing conduces so much to the appreciation of an artist's works as his death. There is the story of Teniers, who, being unable to dispose of the great number of pictures which he had produced, spread abroad the report of his death, and at once buyers began to dispute for the possession of them. What is said to have happened at the fictitious decease of Teniers, actually took place on the death of Sisley. Three months afterwards twenty-seven of the pictures which he had left were sold for the benefit of his two children. Dealers and connoisseurs competed with one another to obtain them. The prices were very different from those of the former sales in 1875 and 1877, when few of the pictures exceeded the average of 100 francs. The twenty-seven canvases realised a total of 112,320 francs. Sisley's works now stood high in the public favour. They offer an example of the remarkable revolution which the advent of a new generation, having no knowledge of the mind of the generation preceding it, may bring about. So long as the champions of the Impressionists in general, and of Sisley in particular, in those days of absolute public indifference, had remained alone and in isolation, they had been like men crying in the wilderness ; but when, in altered circumstances, new adherents now began to sound their praises, they found the public ready to listen to them and to follow them. New dealers and new partisans sprang up; two young men in particular, the brothers Joseph and Gaston Bernheim, who were in sympathy with the forward movement in art, were successful in their advocacy of Sisley's works. They bought up 158 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Sisley's paintings from owners who had previously acquired them at low prices, and those pictures which hitherto had remained in obscurity now took a place in the most famous collections. In the year following Sisley's death, very large numbers of his canvases thus changed hands at prices which rose steadily higher and higher. The veritable furore which they created reached its height in the Tavernier sale of March 6, 1900. It included fourteen of his pictures, of which the most important, Z,' ' Inondation, excited general envy and was admired as a masterpiece. After being dis- puted by some of the wealthiest collectors of Paris, it was knocked down to Count Isaac de Camondo for the remarkable price of 43,000 francs. As a kind of reparation, Sisley, who had undergone more adversity than any other of the Impressionists, was the first to receive a signal mark of public homage. The inhabitants of Moret honoured the memory of the artist who had lived in their midst, by raising a monument to him near the bridge which he had immor- talised in his pictures. CHAPTER XVI RENOIR THE peculiar characteristic of the Impressionists, the result of their practice of painting directly from nature, was the rendering of objects under the fugitive and fluctuating coloration which they derive from the variation of light and from the play of atmosphere. The objects which they reproduced assumed a more brilliant and a more diversified coloration than that which painters working in the studio had heretofore invested them with. Pissarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Guillaumin, all of them first and foremost land- scapists, defined the subtle gradations of fields, woods, rivers, and sea with an inexhaustible variety of unexpected tones. The methods which they applied to landscape, Renoir applied to figure painting. In his canvases face and flesh, clothes and accessories, took on an exceptional radiance. His figures glow with colour upon a brightly painted surface full of combinations of tones ; they form part of a luminous whole. He did not, however, arrive at his individual manner at the first essay ; naturally he only attained it in the long course of time, and, like the rest of the Impressionists, after passing through certain intermediary stages. Pierre Auguste Renoir was born at Limoges on February 25, 1841. He was only three or four years old when his father, a tailor in a small way of business, came to live at Paris, thinking to make his fortune there. The tailor did not succeed in finding the fortune which he had anticipated ; he had a great struggle to live in Paris, and, as he had five children to support, each of them was obliged to earn his own living as soon as he was able. Auguste took up the trade of painter on porcelain at the insti- gation of his father, who had seen it practised at Limoges. He 159 160 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS continued at this occupation from thirteen to eighteen. To enter the manufactory at Sevres as a porcelain painter was at this time the limit of his ambition. His prospects, however, underwent a sudden change. The decoration of porcelain had hitherto been done by hand, but now a machine was invented which rendered hand labour unnecessary. Porcelain painters were suddenly deprived of their means of livelihood. Renoir, after a certain period of unemployment, found another opening in the painting of window-blinds. By this time he had acquired great dexterity of hand, and, as his own natural gifts were now fully developed, he was able to apply himself to his new trade with such superior skill, that, after three or four years, he had saved enough to enable him to abandon it, in order to satisfy those artistic ambitions which were now making themselves manifest. Thus he entered the atelier of Gleyre, a painter of great repute at that time. It was there that in 1861-62 he first met Sisley and Bazille, and afterwards Claude Monet, and became friendly with them. He sent a picture to the Salon for the first time in 1863, but it was rejected. Conceived in the romantic manner, it re- presented a nude woman lying on a bed, and near her a dwarf playing a guitar. He repeated the attempt in 1864, sending another romantic picture, which this time was accepted. The subject was Victor Hugo's heroine, Esmeralda, dancing at night in the Place de Greve, with the towers of Notre-Dame in the background. Renoir destroyed these first two pictures when he afterwards began to paint in a more naturalistic manner. This happy change took place in 1865, when he sent to the Salon two canvases, painted directly from life, both of which were accepted — Le Portrait de Mine. W. S. and Une Soiree (fete. Renoir was not represented in the Salons of 1866 and 1867 — probably he sent pictures which were rejected. To the Salon of 1868 he sent a picture which was accepted — Lise, the portrait of a girl, full length and of life size, in a white dress, with a sunshade in her hand. This work marks a great step in ad- vance. It was painted in the open air in the forest of Fon- tainebleau. Reflections and splashes of light striking through the DAICNEUSE RENOIR 161 foliage of the trees play upon the figure of the girl, upon the ground round about her, and upon the trunk of a tree behind. The essentials of open-air painting are here firmly established, but at the same time certain features are revealed which are traceable to Courbet, the master who then influenced all the young artists who were inclined towards the direct observation of nature. The Salon of 1869 accepted Renoir's picture En etc, in which he had used the same model as in the Lise of the preceding year. He painted her half-length, with bare arms, her hands crossed on her knees, and her hair falling down over her shoulders. This picture had also been painted in the open air, and behind the girl's figure appeared bright green foliage, shot through with the rays of the sun. It was a further advance in the direction of open-air painting, full-coloured and luminous. In 1870 Renoir sent two pictures to the Salon, La Baigneuse and La femme tfAlger. La Baigneuse, the life-sized figure of a nude woman, standing up and facing the spectator, was a very strongly painted piece of work. La femme (PAlger, also life-sized, a woman lying on a couch, was Algerian only in name. The model was a Parisian, dressed in a fancy oriental costume. No Salon was held in 1871 on account of the war ; to that of 1872 Renoir sent a picture of large dimensions, entitled Parisiennes habillees en Algeriennes, which was rejected. It represented a group of women in an interior, clothed in fantastic oriental dress. Every part was rich in tones and reflected lights, and the shadows themselves were full of colour. In 1873 Renoir sent two pictures to the Salon, L Alice cavalier e au Bois de Bou- logne and a portrait. They also were rejected. To-day it ap- pears astonishing that L Alice cavalicre should ever have been condemned by a jury of painters. A woman, almost of life size, on a horse, and at her side a boy on a pony, are seen advancing towards the spectator ; the horse at a quick trot, the pony at a gallop. It is a work of fine quality, executed with extraordinary vigour. Presumably it was rejected on account of the discon- certing novelty of the coloration, which displays reflected lights and the interplay of tones peculiar to Renoir and the Impres- sionists. L 162 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS The increasing difficulty of getting his work accepted at the Salons, together with the development of the peculiarities of his style, led Renoir to join with his friends Monet and Sisley in holding independent exhibitions of their paintings. He asso- ciated with them in their first exhibition at Nadar's, in the Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. He was represented there by five paintings in oil and one in pastel. They included two works which may be said to be among his best : La danseuse and La loge. La danseuse is a young girl, life-sized, standing up, wearing a short tulle ballet-skirt. La loge represents a woman sitting in a box at the theatre, and near her a young man in evening dress. These two works, which now all the world admires, in 1874 simply provoked jeers and laughter. To the second exhibition of the Impressionists in 1876, Renoir sent eighteen works of different kinds. These were the years when the originality of the Impressionists, under the stimulus of mutual emulation, reached its full maturity. Renoir's style, like that of the others, became more and more accentuated at each succeeding exhibition, and at that of 1877, in the Rue le Peletier, his exhibits displayed a highly-marked individuality. The most important were La Salanfoire and Le Hal a Mont- martre, or Moulin de la Galette, both of which have now taken their place in the Musee du Luxembourg, as part of the Caillebotte collection. Renoir's Lise of the Salon of 1868 was his first rendering of a figure placed underneath foliage penetrated by rays of light. This arrangement was repeated in La Balanpoire and the Moulin de la Galette of the 1877 exhibition. Here were seen figures in the open air, grouped under sunlit trees, with splashes of light diffused over the ground and on the figures. But in the interval between 1868 and 1877, Renoir's assiduous work in the open air had enabled him to penetrate more closely into the secret of the play of light and the colour effects of nature ; and, in fact, the coloration of his sunlit foliage now appeared quite different from that of 1868. In his picture of 1868, his foliage was of that bright green which had been adopted as a fixed and invariable shade by painters of landscape, and his luminous patches were of that kind RENOIR 1G3 of yellow uniformly employed to represent those parts directly illumined by the sun, in opposition to the parts in shadow. But now the Impressionists — Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Renoir — had together recognised that the colour effects of light and shadow in the open air are always different, changing according to the season, the hour of the day, and the atmospheric conditions. Following up these observations, and aiming at the greatest possible degree of truth, they were careful to render lights and shadows on each different occasion with a different effect of colour. Pissarro and Monet had already painted effects of snow and hoar-frost in sunlight, in which the shadows were represented as being blue in tone. Sisley had painted the ground with the sun shining upon it in a rose-tinted lilac hue. In the same way, Renoir now gave the figures and ground underneath the sunlit trees in his Balanpoire and Sal a Montmartre a general violet shade. Since that time everybody has become so familiar with coloured shadows, and with violet tones in particular, that they pass without exciting remark ; but in 1877 they appeared as a monstrous innovation. At that time the traditional con- ception of light and shade still held sway ; they were regarded as standing to one another in a fixed opposition ; shadows in pictures were always treated in the same way ; they might be heavy or light, but they were uniformly black in tone. Renoir, therefore, in using a general violet tone for his shadows, gave the impression of being an ignorant and extravagant iconoclast of established principles. Thus, by the original character of his work, he contributed to bring about the outburst of mingled scorn, abuse, and derision which greeted the exhibition of the Impressionists. He received his share of it, and in consequence he experienced the greatest difficulty in selling his pictures, and so obtaining means whereby to live. From the outset of his career he had known the lack of money and had suffered the extreme of poverty ; he had never really freed himself from these difficulties, and after taking part in the exhibitions of the Impressionists he found himself in greater embarrassment than ever. He had tried to increase his resources by selling his pictures by auction. He combined with Claude 164. MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Monet, Sisley, and Berthe Morisot in holding the first public sale of Impressionist paintings in March 1875, and with Pissarro, Sisley, and Caillebotte in holding a second in May 1877. The prices obtained were ludicrous. The twenty canvases put up to auction in 1875 produced only 2150 francs. Among them were some of his best and important works, such as Avant le bain (a young woman, bare to the waist, with arms raised to undo her hair), which realised no more than 140 francs. Une-vue du Pont-Neuf rose to the exceptional figure of 300 francs. At the sale of 1877, after the exhibition in the Rue le Peletier, he obtained no better success — sixteen canvases altogether produced only 2005 francs. After the failure of these two public sales, Renoir did not attempt to repeat the experiment. His works, moreover, were held in such disesteem on account of the sentence of condemnation which had gone forth against them, that he was also unable to sell them privately at reasonable prices. The question of obtaining a remuneration for his work, sufficient to enable him to live, thus became a distressingly acute problem. He solved it by devoting himself largely to portrait-painting. He had already practised it for a long time. Among others, he had painted interesting portraits of his friends Bazille, Monet, and Sisley. He now began to develop this branch of his art, and painted portraits which were to rank as important works both in respect of their size and of their composition. In this way he obtained sufficient support from people of wealth and people of intelligence to enable him ta free himself from the extreme financial embarrassment in which he had hitherto lived. M. Choquet, a man of discriminating taste, who had immedi- ately recognised the greatness of the Impressionists, even when they were universally decried, was the first to commission Renoir to paint portraits. Renoir painted several portraits of himself and his family, most of which were shown at the exhibition of 1876, but as he was not a man of great wealth, he was only able to commission works of modest dimensions. Charpentier, the pub- lisher, was also one of the few people of taste who had at once been able to appreciate the new Impressionist art. After Renoir had painted a successful head of his wife, which was exhibited at 5 r U RENOIR 165 the Impressionist exhibition of 1877, he commissioned him to execute one of his most important works — a life-sized group of Mine. Charpentier and her children. Mme. Charpentier, dressed in black, is seated on a sofa ; at her side are her two youn^ daughters, playing with a large dog. The whole picture is full of colour ; the wainscot in the background, the carpet on the parquet floor, the variously coloured dresses of the mother and the children, the black and white of the dog's coat, present a bold range of tones, all of them in value and at the same time perfectly harmonious and just. When this masterly work was finished, it appeared hopeless for Renoir to attempt to exhibit it in the Salon, in view of his recent rejections and the reputation which he had acquired by exhibiting with the Impressionists. Mme. Charpentier, however, had considerable influence in literary and artistic circles ; she exerted herself on his behalf, with the result that the group and also a portrait of Mile. Jeanne Samary, a popular actress at the Come'die-Frangaise, were not only accepted but hung in an excep- tionally prominent position. Renoir, rejected at the Salons of 1871 and 1872, vilified and decried at the Impressionist exhibitions, was thus seen again under the most favourable circumstances at the Salon of 1879. In the same year Renoir made the acquaintance of two wealthy society people, M. and Mme. BeVard. Without pretending to be connoisseurs, they had admired the charm of La danseuse, and commissioned Renoir to paint a portrait of their eldest daughter, Marthe. Anxious to avoid producing a startling effect, Renoir selected a simple pose and a sober scheme of colour. He painted the girl standing up against a neutral background, her hands crossed in front of her, dressed in a short black frock, with a blue sash and lace collar and cuffs. The picture proved a great success, and the Be>ards were delighted with the grace with which he had invested their daughter. At the same time, quick to appreciate the charm of his quiet and genial manner, they had come to look upon Renoir as a friend. He stayed with them at their house in town and in the country, and received orders to paint a large number of portraits. Renoir had been careful to paint his first portrait for the Berards jn very sober tones, and two or three others were similarly treated. 166 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS But as soon as his connection with the family was more firmly established, he allowed himself great liberty of composition and achieved the most daring effects of colour. He painted ten por- traits in succession, principally of the children, singly and in groups, in the open air and on the seashore. The last and most important is a large group of the three daughters of the house. They are painted without shadow, in what may be called the rawness of broad daylight. The eldest, in profile, is sitting on a chair sewing, wearing a dress of greenish shade ; the two others are in serge costumes, one of them standing up, the other lying on a couch with an open book in front of her. The work is executed in the most daring range of colour that he ever achieved ; it ranks in success and importance with the portrait of Mine. Charpentier and her daughters. Having been admitted to the Salon again in 1879, Renoir con- tinued to exhibit there for several years. In 1880 he sent Les Pccheuses de monies and Jeune fille endormie. Les Pccheuses de monies — the principal figure standing up, with a basket on her back — was painted on the shore at Berneval, a seaside watering-place near Dieppe, and close to Wargemont, where the Berards lived. Renoir stayed at Wargemont on several occasions, and both there and at Berneval he produced a large number of works. In 1881 he sent two women's portraits to the Salon ; in 1882 only one, and one again in 1883. While he was exhibiting at the Salon, Renoir had for the moment severed his connection with his friends the Impres- sionists. He took no part in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1879, 1880, and 1881, but he joined with them in that of 1882 held in the Rue Saint-Honore. He contributed no less than twenty- five canvases. Several of them, painted at Bougival and Chatou, depicted river scenes. At this time rowing was the favourite exercise of the youth of Paris ; it gave the banks of the Seine near Paris a certain air of animation which to-day has disappeared. Renoir's principal picture at the exhibition, Les Canotiers, was suggested by this river life ; on account of its size and its dis- play of the salient features of open-air painting, it forms one of the most important of his works. The oarsmen and their friends are seen grouped round a table under an awning, after lunch. DE JEUNE FILLE RENOIR 167 The Seine and its wooded banks, lit up by the sun, form a luminous background to the picture and enhance the brilliance of the general effect. In 1883 M. Durand-Ruel took some rooms in a house in the Boulevard de la Madeleine, which was undergoing repairs. An exhibition was held there from March to June, and each month was devoted exclusively to one of the Impressionist painters. Renoir, from the 1st to the 25th of April, was thus able to show a collection of seventy paintings, some of them previously exhibited, together with some new ones now shown for the first time. Among the latter were two particularly successful works, Danseurs Bougival and Danseurs Paris. They represented two different aspects of the waltz — at Bougival, a canotier in blue yachting suit and a girl in outdoor dress ; at Paris, a young man and his partner in evening dress. To the Impressionist exhibitions of 1882 and 1883 Renoir sent some scenes of Venice, Naples, and Algiers, and two figure pictures, entitled Femme assise Alger and Negresse Alger. These figures were not Parisian models arrayed in native costume, as in the Femme d 'Alger of the Salon of 1880, but real Algerian women whom he had obtained on the spot. Renoir had brought back a number of canvases after a visit to Italy and Algiers. In the winter of 1881-82 he visited Venice, where he painted some pic- tures, Rome, which he was content merely to look at, and Naples and Palermo, where he also painted. On arriving at Marseilles in the winter he took a chill, and as the doctor forbade him to return to Paris, he spent the spring of 1882 in Algiers. There he painted several pictures, in which the brilliance of his render- ing of sky, sea, and vegetation, glowing with the fierce light of the African sun, was carried to its fullest limits. After 1883 Renoir ceased to exhibit at the Salon, except in the year 1890, when he sent a picture there for the last time. It was a large canvas full of light and colour; the three daughters of M. Catulle Mendes formed the subject. The eldest is sitting at the piano ; the second daughter is standing with a violin under her arm and a bow in her hand ; the youngest is resting her hands on the piano. 168 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS At the Caillebotte collection in the Luxembourg Renoir is represented by six pictures. Among them are two of the best and most characteristic works which he painted, his Sal a Mont- martre and his Salanfoire of the Impressionist exhibition 1877. Renoir was primarily a figure painter, but, having adopt the Impressionist method of working in the open air directly from nature, he also devoted himself to landscape, scape pictures are painted in a scale of full and luminous colour; they are decorative, using the word in its highest signification; they display the ornate aspect of nature. When his work viewed as a whole, Renoir is recognised to be above all the painter of women. He invested them with a kind of sensuality, an effect which was by no means deliberately studied, but proceeded simply from his immediate perception. He always painted nudes with a certain voluptuous charm. A very individual feminine type disengages itself from his work, appearing in that of his earliest period. It is the type of the young Parisienne, ranging from the middle to the working classes, from the midinette to the girl that dances at the Montmartre balls— an elegant little person, smart, daintily dressed, smiling, ingenuous. Renoir invested the Parisienne of the second half of the nineteenth century with a certain grace and attractiveness comparable to the charm which the painters of the eighteenth century gave to women of another world and another class. The autumn Salon of 1904 was the occasion of a great triumph for Renoir. By a happy innovation, a large space was set apart for painters who had died, or who were well advanced in their career. In the latter class Renoir held a distinguished place. Thus the public were able to see a representative collection of his pictures, drawn from all his various periods. The masterliness, the variety, the charm of his work, seen retrospectively, aroused a universal chorus of praise. The press was unanimous in pro- claiming its merit. The hour of justice, though long in coming, had at last arrived. Renoir married and has three children. During the last few years he has suffered from rheumatism, and has passed the winter RENOIR 169 on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean. The country pleased him ; and as his fame had now brought him fortune, he built a house on some land, which he had bought at Cagnes, near Nice. There he lives in peaceful enjoyment of the success which he has achieved. There he paints, and watches the flowering of his orange-trees and the ripening of his olives. CHAPTER XVII BERTHE MORISOT BERTHE MARIE PAULINE MORISOT was born at Bourges on January 14, 1841. She belonged to a family in which the pur- suit of art was a tradition. Her grandfather was a distinguished architect. Her father, Tiburce Morisot, whose early inclinations had been towards art, had studied in the ficole des Beaux-Arts, and had visited Italy, Sicily, and Greece. Then he had embarked upon a quite different career, that of administration, first as Sub- Prefect in various districts, and then as Prefect of the Department of Cher from 1840 to 1848. It was while he was living at Bourges as Prefect that Berthe, the youngest of his three daughters, was born. At an early age Berthe and her next older sister, Edma, showed a great gift of drawing. Their father, who had not for- gotten his own youthful artistic tastes, was delighted to encourage them. When in the early days of the Empire he came with his family to live at Paris, he was able to develop the artistic talent of his daughters. For their master he selected Guichard, who, though he never showed any originality as an artist, was an excellent teacher. When the two sisters had sufficiently profited by the lessons of their first master, they felt themselves drawn towards Corot. They made his acquaintance about 1862. He took a liking to them, and became their guide in matters of art ; but as any sort of teaching was distasteful to him, he sent them to his friend Oudinot at Pontoise, who had adopted his manner of painting. Under Oudinot's direction they painted landscapes at Auvers and elsewhere. They began to exhibit at the Salon in 1864, where their works appeared regularly each year until 1868. Edma, the elder of the two sisters, abandoned painting in 1868, 170 JKUNK FIL1.K AU BAL BBKTHC MORISOT . • .% .."• . BERTHE MORISOT 171 when she married a naval officer named Pontillon. Berthe, there- fore, was left alone. I have had the opportunity of seeing the pictures which she sent to one of her first Salons, that of 1865, a landscape and a still life. They are painted very strongly, very correctly, and, like most early work, are finished in every detail. The landscape is in the manner of Corot. It was evidently under Corot's influence that she developed her own personal-—) feeling and artistic invention, basing them upon the foundation of / academic technique which she had learnt from her first master, ( Guichard. Thus she had an excellent and thoroughly serious apprenticeship. She was, without question, an artist of real accomplishment. Although she was the daughter of a wealthy family and a woman of fashion, it was impossible to regard her / as belonging to the category of women painters whose attitude to art is merely that of the trifling dilettante. As soon as they had attained a certain technique, the sisters Morisot began to work in the Louvre. At this period painting directly from nature was practised only exceptionally ; in general, the painters who taught in the ateliers were unfamiliar with the practice, and consequently did not inculcate it upon their pupils. They were rigorous in urging them, on the other hand, to frequent the Louvre, to make copies, and to seek to discover the secret of the great masters. Students in those days therefore worked in the Louvre in much greater numbers than to-day. While copying in the Louvre, about the year 1861, the Morisots had noticed a young artist painting close beside them, whose name was Manet. They knew him casually, but did not then pursue the acquaintance any further. He also was copying pictures — Tintoretto's portrait of himself and Titian's Virgin with the white rabbit. At that time Manet was merely a beginner ; he had just left Couture's studio, and had not yet attained notoriety. But when — after the Salon des refuses in 1863, to which he sent the Dejeuner sur Therbe, and the Salon of 1865, in which he exhibited the Olympia — he had become famous, the two sisters, who re- membered the young man they had met at the Louvre, visited him in his studio to renew their acquaintance. At this time he was married and lived with his mother. The visit to the studio 172 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS led to a friendship between the Morisots and Manet's wife and mother, and soon afterwards to the establishment of an intimate relationship between all the members of the two families. After Edma Morisot was married, Berthe used to work with Manet in his studio. From that moment she passed under his immediate influence ; but she is not therefore to be regarded as his pupil. When she attached herself to him, she had nothing more to learn as regards rules and precepts ; her artistic education was finished. What she was to borrow from him was the new technique and the brilliant execution which he personally had introduced. These her own exceptional artistic gifts enabled her to appropriate. In all her subsequent production, the scale of tones and the qualities of clarity and light will be seen to be derived from Manet, but the fundamental elements of her work- — her feminine individuality and her personal way of feeling — remain unchanged. Thus the artistic relationship between Manet and Berthe Morisot was established on a permanent footing. Manet had conceived an intense dislike of professional models. He en- deavoured systematically to introduce into his pictures people of a distinctive character, whom he might chance upon in his ordinary intercourse with the world In Berthe Morisot he found a characteristic type of the well-bred woman. He used her, therefore, as a model. He painted her for the first time in 1868, when she sat for the seated figure in the lialcon, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1869, and now hangs in the Luxembourg. He treated the model with considerable freedom and did not aim at great fidelity of portraiture. In a second picture, executed in 1869 and exhibited in the Salon of 1873 under the title of Le Repos, the likeness was more exact. The latter picture is strictly a portrait, and of all those which he painted of her the most important and the most expressive. Berthe Morisot was, in effect, a woman whom it was impossible not to remark. It could not be said that she was really beautiful ; her features lacked regularity and her complexion brilliance, but she was graceful, very distinguished, and perfectly natural. The slender, nervous body betrayed the sensitive, impressionable BERTHE MORISOT 173 temperament. She possessed the physical organism which makes the artist, and certainly she was an artist by race. Whatever she did came straight from the heart, and was full of the charm and sensitiveness of her spirit. There was a perfect accord between her and her work. So long as she remained under the influence of Corot and the tuition of Oudinot, Berth e Morisot had devoted herself almost exclusively to landscape. The works she sent to the Salon were almost entirely confined to this genre. But after she became connected with Manet, who was primarily a figure painter, she extended the field of her art and added figure painting to land- scape. At the Salon of 1870 she showed two pictures with figures : Portrait de Mme. XXX, and Une jeune femme a sa fenetre. From this time onwards, at the various exhibitions in which she participated, her works were of both kinds. She sent pastels to the Salons of 1872 and 1873. She then ceased to exhibit at the Salons, in order that she might join with the Impressionists in their exhibitions. She was represented at the first exhibition in 1874, in the Boulevard des Capucines, by two pictures in oil and some pastels, comprising both landscapes and figures. After Pissarro, she was the most consistent exhibitor at the Impres- sionist exhibitions. With the exception of that in 1879, she took part in them all until the last in 1886. To the exhibition of 1880, in the Rue des Pyramides, she sent the picture now in the Luxembourg, Jeune femme au bal. It may be regarded as one of the best examples of her work, after she had learnt all she could from the methods of Manet. With the pre- cision of her first technique she had combined a softening" of~out- Hhe, with the object of enveloping her figures and landscape with atmosphere. The general effect is very charming. The im- pression is that of a work feminine in its delicacy, but never falling into that dryness and affectation which usually characterise a woman's workmanship. I will quote what I said with regard to her execution in a pamphlet on the Impressionists published in 1878 ; it still embodies my opinion so justly that I cannot very well express myself differently. " The colours on her canvases assume a remarkable delicacy, softness and velvet-like texture. 174 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS The white holds reflected lights which carry it to a subtle shade of tea-rose or ashen grey, the carmine passes insensibly into vermilion, the green of the foliage runs through the whole gamut of tones, from the palest to the most accentuated. The artist gives the finishing touch to her canvases by adding slight brush-strokes here and there — it is as if she were shedding flowers." Thus in bright and delicate tones she painted portraits, genre pictures depicting young girls undressed or at their toilette, land- scapes, frequently with figures, in which the influence of Corot may still be detected. Then towards 1885-86 she modified her palette. Her works reveal unforeseen effects of coloration which she had not before attempted. She shared in the tendency which led the Impressionists to give more and more accentuation to their colours. She developed simultaneously with the others, partly working out her own ideas, partly borrowing from Claude Monet and Renoir, in accordance with that practice of inter- changing methods which we have already once or twice noted in connection with the Impressionists. Her work does not lack variety. It consists, for the most part, of paintings in oil, which include her figure pictures, almost all executed in Paris ; land- scapes, painted chiefly at Pontoise, Compiegne, Fontainebleau, Bougival ; seascapes painted on the coast of Normandy, at Nice, in Jersey, and in England. In addition she produced pastels and drawings in red and coloured chalks. She excelled especi- ally in her water-colours, which are delightfully delicate and transparent. In 1874 Berthe Morisot married Eugene Manet, the younger brother of the painter. She continued to sign her works by her maiden name after her marriage, and we will continue to call her by it. Both she and her husband had inherited considerable wealth. They lived in a house which they had built in the Rue Villejust. The rooms which they occupied included a large picture-gallery, in which Manet's works held the first place, and after them those of Berthe Morisot herself. The circle of their friends was limited but select ; the principal were the painters Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Claude Monet, and the poet Stdphane s u M 2 a oo BERTHE MORISOT 175 Mallarme'. The latter literally worshipped Berthe Morisot. He admired her talent as an artist, and was attracted by her charm as a woman. Owing to his exertions on her behalf, she had the great satisfaction of seeing one of her works admitted to the Muse"e du Luxembourg. The position which Berthe Morisot held in society continually obscured her reputation as an artist. The critics who talked about the exhibitions of the Impressionists usually ignored her or treated her merely as a kind of dilettante. Herein they were doing her an injustice. In virtue of her early studies, and her assiduous pursuit of art, into which she threw her whole soul, she knew herself to be the equal of any other artist, and she was secretly hurt at being treated as an amateur. In the Caillebotte collec- tion a body of Impressionist paintings had been admitted into the Luxembourg, but it contained no work of hers. Mallarme, however, succeeded in opening the doors of the Luxembourg to her in her turn, by his instrumentality in securing the pur- chase of her Femme au bal. This picture had figured in the Impressionist exhibition of 1880 in the Rue des Pyramides. Subsequently I acquired it, and on the occasion of the sale of my pictures in 1894, Mallarmd thought that it was an excellent opportunity to secure one of Berthe Morisot 's pictures for the Muse"e du Luxembourg, and that Lafemme au bal was an excellent example to select. He wrote, therefore, to M. Roujon, the director of the Beaux Arts, who was a great personal friend of his, urgently recommending the purchase of La femme au bal. Such anger, however, had been aroused in very influential quarters by the recent admission of the Caillebotte collection to the Luxembourg, that the addition of a new Impressionist work was a very difficult undertaking. M. Roujon came to see it, together with the directors of the Luxembourg and the Louvre. The picture spoke for itself, and the three officials at once decided upon its purchase. The price paid was 4500 francs — a sum which was even more than the market value at that time. The purchase gave Berthe Morisot genuine satisfaction ; the event was not at all extraordinary in itself, but it derived importance in her eyes from the fact that 176 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS it was a public recognition of her merit, and that henceforth it was impossible to regard her any longer as an amateur, as so many had persisted in doing. Berthe Morisot lost her husband in 1892. She had one daughter. Frail and of a delicate constitution, she herself died on March 2, 1895. CHAPTER XVIII CEZANNE PAUL. CEZANNE was born at Aix en Provence on January 19, 1839. He was the son of a rich banker, who lived in a house surrounded by a large park outside the town. He entered the college at Aix in 1853. There he met Emile Zola, whose father, an engineer, was constructing a canal at Aix, and formed a close friendship with him. Having taken his degree, he left the college at the age of nineteen. In 1860 and 1861 he took a course of studies at the J^cole de droit, and passed the first examination with success. But finding the study of law distasteful, he gave it up. His vocation began to assert itself. The fever of art pos- sessed him. At a very early age he had felt a passion for drawing. When he abandoned the study of law, he expressed his intention of devoting himself to painting. He came to Paris for the first time in 1862, accompanied by his father. He fre- quented the Academic Suisse, but he failed in the competition for admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In consequence of this check, he returned to Aix and entered his father's bank. Naturally he at once found this kind of life insupportable and, as he felt his vocation calling him more and more strongly, he suc- ceeded in returning to Paris, where he gave himself up entirely to painting. He arrived there in 1863. In Paris he once again met Emile Zola; they resumed their former intimacy and lived a kind of common life together. His father allowed him an income of one hundred and fifty francs a month, soon increased to three hundred, which was always paid with regularity. He at once set to work, studying at the Academic Suisse on the Quai des Orfevres. It was there that he first met Pissarro and Guillaumin. Although not compelled to work under the 177 M 178 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS direction of one of the famous Parisian masters, he applied him- self assiduously to acquire a mastery of his craft, working accord- ing to his own ideas. At the end of this first period of apprentice- ship he took a studio in the Rue de Eeautrellis ; he attempted works of a personal kind, but he still required time in order to develop his full individuality. Upon those young artists whose minds were alert, Delacroix and Courbet exercised a powerful influence. Cezanne was first fascinated by the colour and the romanticism of Delacroix. He has left some early compositions conceived in the spirit of the purest romanticism, notably an important work entitled L'Enlevement, which figured in the Zola sale in March 1903. The influence of Delacroix, however, was only transitory ; that of Courbet, which succeeded it, was deeper and more lasting. He became personally acquainted with Courbet, and entered into friendly relations with him. Courbet's realism was fundamentally in accord with his own temperament ; the works which he produced under his influence are, therefore, comparatively numerous. In 1866 Zola had scandalised the public by his enthusiastic eulogy of Manet in the article on the Salon which he had con- tributed to L'Evcnement. Cezanne, who was on the most intimate terms with Zola, thus found himself suddenly brought into con- tact with Manet and his art. From this time he abandoned the colour-scheme which he had borrowed from Courbet, and adopted that of Manet. He was feeling his way towards the develop- ment of that system of coloration in which his originality was to find its complete expression. It must be clearly understood that the successive influences which Cezanne underwent do not mark rigidly defined differ- ences of style. He was a man of strong individuality, who had without hesitation embarked upon a certain definite course. He promptly determined his choice of subjects and the limits within which he intended to confine himself. Except for a brief period at the beginning of his career, when, under the influence of Delacroix, he painted some compositions in the romantic manner, he had never felt any other attraction than that of the spectacle of the visible world. He never sought SON PORTRAIT PAR LUI MtME CEZANNE 179 after descriptive subjects ; he eschewed literary inspiration ; the expression of moods and abstract sentiments was always foreign to him. He first of all devoted himself to painting what the eye can see — still life, landscape, heads and portraits — and then, as a kind of culmination of his work, compositions simply treated, in which figures were grouped together, not with any interest of action but merely as models to be painted. As Cezanne at an early period had settled the boundaries within which he intended to work, the importance of the various influences which he underwent resolves itself into a question of technique, values of tones and scale of colour. These at first he borrowed from those who came before him. His colour in particular passed through various phases before it became defi- nitely fixed. The external aspect of his work underwent changes and modifications, until his adoption of open-air painting finally gave it a definite character. This came about in 1873. In that year Cezanne went to live at Auvers-sur-Oise. There he met Pissarro and Vignon, who for a long time had been painting in the open air. He began to follow their example, and painted landscapes, with the bright colour effects which play over a countryside bathed in light immediately before his eyes. Hitherto he had seldom gone out of the studio; even his landscapes, such as La Neige fondante of the Doria sale, were executed indoors, far from the actual scene represented. When Cdzanne began to paint systematically in the open air at Auvers, he was thirty- three years old ; he had now been working for a long period of time ; he had a sure command over the methods of his art. When, therefore, he came into direct contact with nature and with the intense coloration of the open air, the originality of his genius found its full expansion. He developed a range of colour, strong, unexpected, and absolutely individual. It is necessary, however, to be on one's guard against regarding him as a man full of revolutionary ideas and antipathetic towards the established schools. His visits to the Louvre had given him a very thorough knowledge of the old masters, and he yielded to none in his admiration of them. His independent spirit had marked out for him a course of his own, which he was determined 180 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS to follow without divagation ; but with this reservation, he desired nothing more than to please the public, to participate in the official exhibitions and to enjoy the various advantages which they confer. For years he persistently endeavoured to exhibit in the Salons, but, both before and after the war of 1870, the pictures which he sub- mitted were invariably rejected. It was largely owing to the impossibility of showing his work at the Salon that he was led to unite with those artists who afterwards came to be known as Impressionists. When he first came to Paris he made the acquaint- ance of Pissarro and Guillaumin and, some years later, of Renoir and Claude Monet. He took part with them, therefore, in the first exhibition which they organised in 1874, together with a group of artists, in the Boulevard des Capucines. His principal contribution to this exhibition was La Maison du pendu, painted at Auvers in 1873. The name was due to the fact that the owner of the house had committed suicide there. This picture reveals unmistakably the characteristic gifts of the artist, although in this, as in several other works of the same period, it is possible to discover the influence of Pissarro, with whom he was working when he first began to paint in the open air. But between the exhibition of 1874 and that of 1877, he got rid of every element of reminiscence in his work. In the latter exhibition he exhibited sixteen paintings and water-colours — still life, flower pieces, land- scapes, together with a portrait, the head of M. Choquet. In these works his originality at last arrived at maturity. At the exhibition of 1877 in the Rue Peletier the Impressionists gave full scope to their boldness of treatment, and consequently excited such disgust that they were regarded as unspeakable barbarians. But none was regarded with such profound horror, none appeared to be so absolutely barbaric, as Cezanne. In 1877 the recollection of the Commune was still fresh, and the fact that the Impressionists were at that time spoken of as Communards was principally due to the presence of Cezanne in their midst. It is unlikely that any painters will ever again have to face the hostility which was manifested against the Impressionists. The repetition of such a phenomenon would be impossible. The case of the Impressionists, in which withering scorn yielded place to CEZANNE 181 admiration, has put criticism on its guard. It will surely stand as a warning, and ought to prevent the recurrence of a similar outburst of indignation against the innovators and independents whom time may yet bring forth. If such be the case, Cezanne will have furnished a unique example for all time. Of all the Impressionists he was by far the most bitterly denounced, and consequently in their treatment of him the Philistines have most cause for repent- ance. In him, originality and individuality of a unique order impinged with greater violence than they had ever done before, upon the current, universally accepted formulas of the facile art of the time. It is necessary to understand how this came about. The distinctive and isolated nature of Cezanne's art was due, first of all, to the circumstance that he had never received a regular course of training in any of the ateliers of the famous painters of the day, where young artists were taught to produce works accord- ing to the current formula of the time. Hence his style appeared unusual and the characteristics of his work disconcerting. The Parisian ateliers have succeeded in turning out an incalculable number of painters, who work according to such safe rules that their productions may be said to be impeccable. Hundreds of them exhibit in the Salons every year, drawing their outlines and colouring their surfaces with faultless precision. Their exhibits contain nothing to which exception may be taken ; they discover no omissions. But all these artists are exactly alike ; they have the same handling, the same technique. In the end their works simply arouse the disgust of those who look for originality and invention in art. With their mechanical correctness, however, they offer a general regularity of drawing, an adequate presentment of form, which have imposed upon the eye to such an extent that every- thing which differs from them appears to the untrained public to be badly drawn and badly painted. Now Ce"zanne, by his unique and very pronounced style, gave a violent shock to the usually commonplace public taste. He was before all things a painter ; his drawing had none of the rigidity of lines and contours which was to be found in the works of other artists. His method was peculiar to himself; he applied touches to the canvas first side by side, then one upon the other. In certain cases it may even be 182 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS said that he plastered his picture. For those who had eyes to see, the different planes, the contours, the modelling, disengaged them- selves from the juxtaposition and superposition of touches of colour, but for others they remained confused in a uniform mixture of colour. Cezanne was before everything else a painter, in the y- proper sense of the word, and before everything else he endea- voured to obtain strength of colour and quality of paint. Hence, however, in the opinion of those who only understand drawing under the form of an arrangement of fixed and precise lines, he did not draw at all. For those who demand that a picture shall present a historical or. anecdotal subject, his pictures, which presented nothing of the kind, were simply not pictures at all. To those who desiderate surfaces uniformly worked over, his execution, which in some places left the canvas bare and in others loaded it with paint, appeared to be that of an incompetent bungler. His method of juxtaposing or superimposing uniform touches of colour, in order to obtain great density, seemed to be coarse, barbaric, monstrous. Cezanne's works, however, reveal one peculiarity of a very high order of merit ; but it is precisely a quality of that kind which not only the general public, but also people of literary culture, and even the mass of artists themselves, cannot at once either under- stand or appreciate, because they cannot at once grasp its signifi- cance— it is the value of the pigment in and for itself, the strength and harmony of the colour. Now Cdzanne's pictures offer a range of colour of great intensity and of extreme luminosity. From this the picture derives a strength independent of the subject ; so much so that a still life, a few apples and a napkin on a table, assume a kind of grandeur, in the same degree as a human head or a land- scape with sea. This quality of the painting in itself, however, in which Cezanne's superiority lies, was beyond the reach of those who beheld his works ; on the other hand, those features which appeared to them to be little less than monstrous forced themselves painfully upon their vision. For this reason his work seemed to them to merit only laughter, sarcasm, and abuse ; and of this expression of their opinion they were extremely lavish. At the exhibitions of 1874 and 1877, therefore, Cezanne found himself so absolutely despised, so hopelessly misunderstood, that I U CEZANNE 183 for a long time he abstained from showing his works to the public. Henceforth he took no part in any of the exhibitions organised by the Impressionists. But holding himself aloof from the world, he continued to paint witli the greatest keenness and perseverance. He devoted himself to the practice of his art with untiring energy. His case is remarkable in the history of painting. Here was a man who had suffered such harsh treatment in consequence of the exhibition of his works, that he refrained from submitting them again to the public view. There was nothing to indicate to him that a change would take place in popular opinion in his favour, either in the near future or, for that matter, ever at all. He worked, therefore, not for the honour or renown which form so alluring an attraction to many artists, inasmuch as these rewards appeared to be definitely withheld from him. Neither was gain his object, for the general disgust which his works excited practi- cally destroyed any chance he might have had of selling them ; or if, by a rare exception, he managed to effect a sale, the price was always quite insignificant. Moreover, he had no need to work in order to live, like so many other painters who, having embraced the career of art, are condemned to a long struggle with poverty. He enjoyed an allowance from his father which was sufficient for his wants, with the prospect of one day inheriting his father's fortune. The motives, therefore, which induced him to continue to paint were not those which usually actuate others. He con- tinued to paint simply because it was his vocation ; because he felt the need of satisfying himself. He paints because he is made to. paint. It is the case of a man whose nature forcibly impelled him to the fulfilment of a certain task. The objects which came within the range of his vision obviously provoked in him sensations so precise that he felt the necessity of perpetuating them in paint, and in so doing he experienced the delight which springs from the satisfaction of an imperious need. Since now he painted for himself alone, he painted in the way which best enabled him to compass the difficult success which he had in view. His workmanship betrayed no trace of what may be called virtuosity ; he never condescended to that facile manipula- tion of the brush which yields only approximate effects. He 184 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS painted with the utmost scrupulousness. He worked with his eyes rigidly fastened on the model or the subject which he was painting, and applied every touch in such a way that it should help to fix on the canvas the precise effect before him. He carried this probity, this desire to render the object of his vision with sincerity, to great lengths. His horror of work executed with facility or knack was so great, that if, in painting a picture, portions of the canvas here and there remained bare, he left them as they were, rejecting the common practice of subsequently working over the parts originally neglected. His system obliged him to labour of a very intense kind. His canvases, which appeared so simple, demanded a large, often an enormous, number of sittings. His methods did not permit him that sure but mediocre success which others achieved. A great number of his pictures he did not carry beyond the stage of a sketch or rough draught ; he then discarded them, either because he failed to obtain the effect which he desired, or because circum- stances prevented him from carrying them to completion. Those works, however, in which he attained complete success display that kind of strength, that vigorous and direct expression, which proceed from closeness of observation combined with breadth of treatment. Cdzanne regarded the scorn of which he was the object with much philosophy. The idea of modifying his style in any par- ticular, in order to accommodate himself to the average taste, never occurred to him for a single moment. When once he had withdrawn from contact with the public and ceased to take part in exhibitions, he painted without any preoccupation as to what was going on round about him. When we say that he ceased to take part in exhibitions, the statement is strictly true of the exhibitions of the Impressionists, from which he was always absent after 1877, but otherwise there was one exception. In 1882, the desire to force his way into the official exhibition again took hold of him, and accordingly he sent a man's portrait to the Salon of that year. Guillemet, one of the friends of his student days in Paris, was then a member of the jury, and secured CEZANNE 185 its acceptance. By this chance the Salon of 1882 was the only one to which a work of Cdzanne's was ever admitted. Twenty years elapsed, during which the public remained either ignorant or contemptuous of him ; and with the public must be included writers, collectors, dealers, all those who make the reputation of an artist and assign him the reward of his labour. He was appreciated only by the small group of his artist friends, Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, Guillaumin, who at once ranked him as a master ; and with them were associated a few solitary con- noisseurs, who also understood him and were anxious to possess his works. Count Doria was one of the first collectors to appreciate him. He owned an important collection of pictures by Corot and the masters of 1830. To these, after 1870, he added some of the works of the Impressionists, and in particular Cdzanne's La Maison du pendu. He exchanged it afterwards for M. Choquet's La Neige fondante. M. Choquet had been a great admirer of Ce"zanne from the very first. In his early days he had been fascinated by Delacroix, at a time when Delacroix was generally held in disrepute. The instinct which had at first led towards Delacroix, afterwards drew him towards the Impressionists. He especially admired Cdzanne. He was a man of extreme politeness, and although he held his opinions with conviction, he always expressed them with great deference. In this way he won the ear of many people who at this time would have listened to the praises of the Impres- sionists, and of Ce"zanne in particular, from no other person. He was to be found at exhibitions, sales, and wherever works of the Impressionists were to be seen, carrying on a continual propaganda among his friends. He became a kind of apostle. In 1873 he became very friendly with Cezanne, who thenceforward spent part of his time at his home painting for him, either in Paris or in the country. Cezanne painted three or four carefully exe- cuted portraits of M. Choquet, which take an important place in his work : one was the head exhibited in the Impressionist exhibition of 1877; another, a half-length, with the figure in white standing out against a background of green plants, was painted in the open air in Normandy in 1885. Altogether thirty- 186 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS one pictures by Cezanne were put up to auction in July 1899 after the death of Mine. Choquet, who had inherited the collec- tion from her husband. Among them was the Mardi gras, a pierrot and a harlequin, one of those subjects whose interest lies in the painting of the figures themselves and not in any particular action in which the characters are engaged. Cezanne was married in 1867, and had a son in 1872. He divided his time between Paris and its neighbourhood and his native town of Aix, which, as he remained on excellent terms with his family, he always used to visit at intervals. During these years he lived a retired life ; he was freed from financial cares by the allowance which he received from his father. The sale of a picture was the rarest occurrence, and even then the price was so low that it added practically nothing to his small income. After the death of his father in 1886, and of his mother in 1897, he received his share of his father's fortune ; his position now became that of a wealthy citizen of Aix, where he took up his residence permanently. Riches did not cause him to alter his manner of living. As in the past, he continued to paint with assiduity, always solely absorbed by his art. The lapse of years seemed to leave him in isolation, but true merit is always revealed by time, and time was silently working for him. The first generation, which had taken account of the Impressionists only to denounce and ridicule them, had been succeeded by a second, which had learned to understand and appreciate them. Cdzanne, who had been held in the greatest contempt of them all, was the last to be received into public favour. He still found himself unknown and unappreciated by the general public ; but, on the other hand, there appeared an increasing nucleus of admirers, composed of artists, con- noisseurs and collectors, who formed a kind of sect, penetrated by a sort of fanaticism, in which he was placed in the very front rank. Henceforward the difficulty of finding purchasers for his pictures became less ; moreover, at this time a dealer named Vollard appeared, ready to undertake the sale of his works, a venture which was destined to prove wholly successful. Vollard had come from the He de la Reunion, his native place, CEZANNE 187 to study law and letters at Paris. He was a man of taste, and had instinctively foreseen the future which lay before the Im- pressionists. Having to choose a career, he set up as a pic- ture dealer. At first he occupied several shops in obscure streets, keeping only works which were held of no account, and selling them at very low prices. But just at this time the move- ment in favour of the Impressionists set in. As his connection grew larger and he was able to raise the price of his pictures, he accumulated capital, which he invested in the purchase of pictures by Cdzanne. He acquired altogether some two hundred of them for the sum of 80,000 or 90,000 francs. To complete the undertaking, he took a shop in the Rue Lafitte, where he showed the pictures which he had acquired, and kept them pro- minently before the public. This sudden turn of fortune was an important event for Cezanne ; it induced him to sell his works, which were now permanently brought before the notice of connoisseurs and the general public. Vollard's shop in the Rue Lafitte now became the meeting- place of those artists of the younger generation, who were admirers and partisans of the master. A select group was thus formed, and the creed which they held found expression in a work by Maurice Denis, entitled Hommage a Cezanne, exhibited in the Salon of the Champ de Mars in 1901. Gathered admiringly round one of Cezanne's pictures, which is placed on an easel, are to be seen the painters Bonnard, Denis, Redon, Roussel, Serusier, Vuillard, and with them Mellerio and Vollard. Thus Cdzanne, who had supported the long years of contempt very philosophically, at last found that his work had obtained some measure of appreciation. In 1902 he let it be understood that, while he would not think of making any request or taking any steps himself, he would readily accept any decoration which might be conferred upon him, as an official recognition of his merit. M. Roujon, the director of the Beaux-Arts, was approached with a view to securing for him the Legion of Honour. The request was met by a peremptory refusal. The director declared himself ready to decorate any other of the Impressionists, especially Claude Monet, who, however, was precisely the one who refused to be 188 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS decorated ; but to decorate Cezanne he regarded as tantamount to a repudiation of all the principles and laws which it was his office to uphold. Ce"zanne, therefore, had to recognise that his apprecia- tion by a minority of artists and connoisseurs did not prevent the fact that, in the correct administrative mind and in the spheres of official art, he was still regarded as an anarchist. Of all the remarkable facts in connection with Cezanne's life and work, the most remarkable was the astonishing contrast which existed between the popular estimation of the man and his true character. The man whose art was denounced as that of a Com- munard and an anarchist was in reality a rich bourgeois, conserva- tive, catholic, who never suspected that any one would ever take him for a revolutionary, who devoted all his time to his work, who led the most regular life and was worthy of all esteem. Cezanne died at Aix on September 22, 1906. He suffered from diabetes, and consequently ought to have taken special pre- cautions. But heedless of the risks which he incurred, he refused to modify his habits of work, and continued as in the past to paint in the open air. A week before his death, he was out in the country, painting in the rain. He contracted a chill, followed by congestion of the liver. He had to be taken home from the remote spot where he was working in a laundryman's cart. He usually rose early in the morning, and on the next day but one after his accident, he went out between six and seven o'clock to work at a portrait of an old sailor which he had begun, in the open air. He fell ill again, and was once more taken home and obliged to keep his bed. His passion for painting was so strong, however, that in spite of his suffering, he got up from time to time in order to add a few touches to a water-colour, which he kept at his side. He may be said to have died literally with his brush in his hand. CHAPTER XIX GUILLAUMIN ARMAND GUILLAUMIN was born in Paris on February 16, 1841. His parents came originally from Moulins. After living in Paris for some time, they returned to their native town, bringing their son, still quite a child, back with them. Thus he received his educa- tion at Moulins, where he remained until his seventeenth year. He was then sent to an uncle in Paris, a linen-draper, and was to have entered his shop. But the young man had no taste for busi- ness. Instead of waiting for customers behind the counter, he used to walk in the Bois de Boulogne or visit the galleries of the Louvre and the Luxembourg. As invariably happens in such a case, the nascent artistic impulse which dominated him led to differences with his family, and caused him to be regarded as an idler and a ne'er-do-well. In 1862, having fallen out with his family, he left his home and became an employee of the Orleans railway company. He spent his leisure time in the evening and on Sundays in drawing. He took a course of drawing lessons at the Jllcole Communak, where he dis- tinguished himself and received a bronze medal. In 1864 he was raised to a superior grade and began to work in the Academic Suisse on the Quai des Orfevres. There he became acquainted with Ce"zanne and Pissarro ; with Cezanne he entered into a specially close friendship. Resolved to devote himself entirely to painting, he left the office of the Compagnie d 'Orleans. He tried to make a living with his brush by painting blinds, but he failed. Poverty compelled him to seek fresh employment, and he secured a post in the Paris Corporation highway department. In spite of difficulties, he still devoted himself to his artistic studies and continued to paint. 1S9 190 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS As his employment in the highway department did not permit him to go far away to paint, he painted such views as offered them- selves in Paris itself, on the quays or in the suburbs, at Charenton, at Clamart, or on the banks of the Bievre. Hence when he joined with his friends Pissarro and Cezanne in taking part in the Impres- sionist exhibitions of 1874 and 1877, his own contributions helped to swell the indignation which was manifested against the whole group. To all the other features which brought the works of the Impressionists into popular contempt, he added the peculiarity of selecting as his subjects places which at that time were believed to be absolutely unworthy of attention — the outskirts of Paris, the thinly-populated district between the town and the country. He exhibited pictures entitled Lavoir a Billancourt, Rue a Clamart, Route de Clamart a Issy. Since that time, however, the views as to what is the proper sphere of art has broadened. The right of the artist to include every corner of the visible world in his vision has been conceded ; it is agreed that the worth of his representation of objects depends upon the sensation which they induce in him. Places which were formerly deemed to be vulgar — quarters where the miserable human wrecks of the city are to be found, along the quays, on the ramparts, in the faubourgs- have been systematically chosen by popular artists as the subjects of their pictures. Scenes taken from these quarters, when treated with art, have been found to be as full of interest as any others. But in the period when Guillaumin produced his work, opinion was not yet emancipated from the old conventions ; that side of things which was regarded as coarse, prosaic, vulgar, was syste- matically avoided. Guillaumin, with his views of quays and his street scenes at Billancourt and Clamart, thus contributed to the exhibitions of 1874 and 1877 yet another element provocative of disgust, and was in part responsible for the contempt in which they were held. Absent from the Impressionist exhibition of 1879, he took part in all the others until the last in 1886. As in 1874 and 1877, most of his subjects were taken from the quays and outskirts of Paris. His range, however, was enlarged and embraced the open country. H O GUILLAUMIN 191 To the exhibition of 188G, he sent a series of landscapes painted at Damiette, near to Orsay. He now also began to study the render- ing of the human form ; henceforth, in addition to landscape, his work included portraits and pictures with figures in the open air. Guillaumin shared in the general movement which led all the Impressionists to develop their system to its ultimate conse- quences, and to adopt an increasingly bright scheme of colour. His first pictures were rather sombre and in a monochrome of greens ; they were followed by others full of vibrating tones and of a great range of colour. His touch and methods of execution owed much to Claude Monet, while he incorporated Ce"zanne's scale of tones as an integral part in his own. But, like the rest of the Impressionists when, in the course of their common develop- ment, they availed themselves of each other's inventions, he made these borrowed elements his own by adapting them to his own temperament. For some years Guillaumin remained in the employment of the Paris highway department, painting in his leisure hours and during his holidays. He was unable to dispense with a definite employment, as he was married and had a family. His attempt to live entirely by painting had not succeeded, and the difficulty which he had experienced in selling his pictures, even at the lowest prices, convinced him that another attempt would have no better success. There appeared, therefore, no immediate pros- pect of his being able to free himself from his work. In 1891, however, he met with an unexpected stroke of good fortune. A ticket which he held in a lottery attached to the Credit Foncier brought him in a prize of 100,000 francs. To him this sum was a vast fortune. He at once gave up his employment. Now that his resources enabled him to move his home, he went far away from Paris, to places where he was able to paint subjects which were in a special sense picturesque. Thus he went to paint first at Saint Palais-sur-Mer, at the mouth of the Gironde, then at Agay, near Frejus on the Mediterranean, and again in Auvergne and in the Haute Loire. He was attracted by La Creuse and went there regularly, choosing Crozant, at the 192 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS confluence of the Creuse and the Sedelle, as his centre. The ruins of the old castle, which dominates Crozant, and the picturesque and varied banks of the two rivers, gave him his principal subjects for his pictures. In 1904, looking about for an entirely new field, he went to Holland and painted the country round Saardam with its windmills and canals. CHAPTER XX IN 1909 AFTER having given some account of the difficulties which beset Manet and the Impressionists at the beginning of their career, and of the struggle which they waged so long without success, it will be well to conclude by showing how at last their work has won recognition and taken root in various countries. After Manet's death his friends conceived the idea of holding an exhibition of his works. In his will Manet had appointed me his executor. Accordingly, acting in agreement with the wishes of his family, I decided to apply for permission to exhibit his works in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. The space available was sufficient for the assembling of a large collection of his works. The prestige attaching to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would give the exhibition the character of a kind of posthumous triumph, which was precisely what we desired. At this period, in 1884, Manet's worth was recognised as yet only by an intelligent minority of artists, men of letters and con- noisseurs. The attitude of the public was still hostile, while in official circles and among the directors of the Beaux-Arts and the national galleries the opposition was as persistent as ever. Under those circumstances it was difficult to obtain permission to use the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, a State institution, where the course of study followed the lines of the rigid discipline of academic tradi- tion. The Director of the Beaux-Arts, M. Kaempfen, refused the first request which I made in the name of Manet's family and in my own. He was an old friend of mine, and while expressing his regret at having to send me away with a refusal, he told me of his astonishment that I should presume to ask for the use of an insti- tution devoted to the teaching of art, for the purpose of exhibiting 193 M 194 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS the work of an artist who, in his opinion, was nothing less than a revolutionary. After the refusal of the Director of the Beaux-Arts it was decided to approach the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Ferry, who had control over the administration of the Beaux-Arts. His well-known preference for the correct traditional manner in art led us to suspect that, unless we could obtain some exceptional support, we should meet with no more success with him than with his subordinate, the Director of the Beaux-Arts. We, therefore, secured as our spokesman M. Antonin Proust, Deputy, a former Minister of Arts under Gambetta, and a member of the majority in the Chamber which supported the Government. He was, moreover, one of the oldest friends of Manet. AVe went together to see the Minister. M. Jules Ferry did not conceal his dis- pleasure at our request, but, as his decision was dictated by political motives, he was obliged to consent without demur to put the Ecole des Beaux- Arts at our disposal. The exhibition of Manet's work took place in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in January 1884. The collection comprised works of every description, among others, those which had formerly been rejected at the Salons, or which had originally excited the bitterest hostility, including Le Buveur d 'absinthe, Le Dejeuner stir flierbe, Olympia, Le Fifre, Le Balcon, Argenteuil, Le Linge, L Artiste. But time had done its work, and the pictures, which were now seen once again, produced a wholly different effect from that which they created when they first appeared. The exhibition had a great success. Partisans were confirmed in their admira- tion, and their numbers were increased by the conversion of former opponents and of those who had hitherto remained indifferent, to whom this exhibition came as a startling revelation. The exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was followed by the sale by his widow of the studio and the works which Manet had left. It took place at the Hotel Drouot on the 4th and 5th of February 1884. It aroused great curiosity; speculation was rife as to what would be the result. In view of the dis- favour with which wealthy collectors and connoisseurs had always regarded Manet's works, many doubted whether they would ! < a. 2 ^ n IN 1909 195 succeed in finding purchasers. Thus there was a great feeling of uncertainty at the opening of the sale, but it at once became evident that it was going to be a success. All the works were sold, and among the buyers were many new collectors, whose interest in Manet had not previously been suspected, thus in- creasing the number of those who were already known as his supporters. Among others, seven pictures were sold which had appeared in the Salon : Le Bar aux Folies-Bergere, which realised 5800 francs ; Chez le Pcre Lathuile, 5000 francs ; La Lefon de musiqiie, 4400 francs; Le Balcon, 3000 francs; Portrait de M. Faure, 3000 francs. Le Linge was sold for 8000 francs, the Olympia was withdrawn at 10,000, and the Argenteuil at 12,000. Small as these prices appear to-day, they nevertheless created great astonishment at the time. The total realised was 116,637 francs. The success of the sale, following upon that of the exhibition, left Manet in a far higher position in the public estimation than before. Five years later, in 1889, an Exposition Universelle was held, in which Manet was represented. Thus some reparation was made for the injury which had been done him in his lifetime in excluding him from the Expositions Universelles of 1867 and 1879. The reparation was all the more striking on account of the fact that, in accordance with the regulations of the new exhibition, Manet was ranked with the masters of the century. The exhibitions of 1867 and 1878 had been restricted to pic- tures painted during the preceding period of ten years, the interval between one exhibition and the other. But as the exhibition of 1889 was intended to commemorate the centenary of the Revolution, it was decided that, in addition to the pro- ductions of the last decade, there should be an exhibition of the works of painters who had flourished in the hundred years between 1789 and 1889. Manet, who had died in 1883, was included among them. The direction of the centenary exhibi- tion was in the hands of two of Manet's friends, M. Antonin Proust and M. Roger Marx. They arranged that it should con- tain some of the best examples of his work — Olympia, Le Fifre Le Bon Bock, Argenteuil, etc. 196 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS At this exhibition the Olympia attracted the special atten- tion of a certain collector, who contemplated buying it. On hearing this, Mr. John Sargent expressed his opinion that it would be a deplorable loss to artists and the public if the picture, instead of taking its place in a gallery where all the world could see it, were to be buried in a private collection. He spoke to Claude Monet in this sense, and Monet at once started a campaign, carrying Manet's friends along with him in his enthusiasm. Twenty thousand francs were raised by subscription ; the sum was to be paid over to Mme. Manet as the price of the picture, which was then to be offered to the Music du Luxembourg. This proposal, however, roused the indignation of Manet's former opponents, the devotees of tradi- tion ; it appeared to them altogether too presumptuous. They would have been willing that one of those of Manet's works which they judged reasonable, such as the Guitarero of the Salon of 1861, or the Bon Bock of the Salon of 1873, should be admitted to the Luxembourg, but the Olympia they rejected categorically. They still considered it as pernicious as when it aroused general indignation in the Salon of 1865. The only result of this opposition was that Claude Monet and the friends of Manet, who had seconded him. were more persistent than ever in their efforts, and after having collected the 20,000 francs and remitted it to Mme. Manet, they formally offered the picture to the Luxembourg. Their opponents, how- ever, were so desperate in their resistance that a year's work was necessary before the opposition could be overcome. Even then this success would not have been obtained, had it not been for the prestige which the names of celebrated men lent to the subscription list, and for the assistance of an influential politician. M. Camille Pelletan, Deputy, presented Claude Monet to his friend the Minister of Public Instruction, who at last, on November 17, 1890, signed the order accepting the picture. The Olympia remained in solitary isolation at the Luxembourg for some years, when an unexpected event took place, which led to the addition of a large number of Impressionist pictures. The painter Caillebotte died while still young in 1894, bequeathing IN 1909 197 his collection of pictures to the Muse"e du Luxembourg. It included works by Manet, Degas, and by the Impressionists Pis- sarro, Claude Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Cezanne. The men who had made strenuous efforts to prevent the admission of the Olympia to the Luxembourg were equally anxious to oppose the acceptance of the Caillebotte bequest; but, having been defeated the first time, they had to recognise the fact that the result would be the same again, unless they moderated their demands. They con- tented themselves, therefore, with insisting that the collection should only be admitted to the gallery after certain eliminations had been made. Their hostility was concentrated upon Cezanne, always the most unpopular of the Impressionists. His work they wished to exclude altogether. Caillebotte had appointed Renoir his executor. He had made it a condition in his will that his collection should be admitted to the Luxembourg in its entirety, and that no selection should be made so as to exclude the works of any artist who was repre- sented in it. Renoir, acting together with Caillebotte's heirs, did his utmost to secure that the testator's wishes should be carried out, but the Administration des Beaux-Arts asserted that, in con- sequence of the limited accommodation at the Luxembourg, it was only possible to accept the collection on condition that it was reduced to smaller limits. Renoir and Caillebotte's heirs found that there was no alternative but to agree that a selection should be made; they demanded, however, that the selection should include works by all the painters, and, in particular, by Ce"zanne. Accordingly, the pictures to be placed in the Luxembourg were chosen in the following proportions: — By Manet, two pictures selected out of three; by Claude Monet, eight out of sixteen; by Sisley, six out of nine ; by Pissarro, seven out of eighteen ; by Cezanne, two out of four ; by Renoir, six out of eight ; and all the seven small pictures by Degas. Since that time various works have been added to the Caille- botte Collection at the Luxembourg : the Jeune femme au bal by Berthe Morisot, a landscape by Guillaumin, two by Sisley, a full-length portrait of a woman by Renoir. In France pictures do not receive final sanction until they 198 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS have been promoted from the Luxembourg to the Louvre. There they take their place under the masters who have stood the test of time, and if they can sustain the comparison, the question of their greatness is settled for ever. According to the traditional rule, no work can be admitted to the Louvre until ten years after the artist's death. When, in 1893, ten years had passed since Manet's death, his friends repeatedly expressed their desire to see the Olympia transferred from the Luxembourg to the Louvre. But in advancing the claims of Manet's work, opposition was encountered at every step. The directors of the Beaux- Arts and the authorities who controlled the admission of new works to the Louvre turned a deaf ear, and remained unresponsive to the representations which were made to them. Thus, year after year, the Olympia remained in the Luxem- bourg until M. Cldmenceau, an old friend of Manet, whose portrait Manet had painted, became Prime Minister. Claude Monet, who had been instrumental in securing for the Olympia a place in the Luxembourg, set to work to accomplish its promotion to the Louvre. On his demand, M. Clemenceau at once effected the transfer which was asked for. The Olympia, now hung in the " Salle des Etats," at the Louvre challenged comparison with the works of the great classics, romantics and realists of the nineteenth century — David, Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet. It has shown that Manet gave birth to new forms in art, which are no whit inferior to those which French painting had already produced. • ••••••• After France, Germany was the country in which opinion, both among artists and the general public, was most sharply divided upon the question of Manet and the Impressionists ; but nowhere, after the opposition had been overcome, did their works exercise such profound influence, or obtain such widespread recognition. In Germany, Manet acted upon Max Liebermann in much the same way in which he had acted upon the Impres- sionists in France. He gave him the impulse which led him to forsake the conventions of the studio and to paint in bright tones and in full light. Finding in this method a means to the development of his own talent, Liebermann became an initiator IN 1909 199 in Germany ; to his example was due the formation of the school of independent artists, who broke with the conventional academic methods and cast about for an original form of self-expression. The new German school succeeded in establishing itself only after a loud and prolonged contest. The struggle attracted all the more attention, inasmuch as in the foremost rank of the partisans of the old ideas, and consequently among the opponents of the German innovators and of Manet and the French Impressionists, was the Emperor William II. After having won the homage of the German painters, Manet and the Impressionists found numerous adherents and admirers among German writers, critics, collectors, and directors of public galleries. Thus, owing to the effective propaganda which was carried on in their favour, their works found places both in public and private collections. Herr von Tschudi, the Director of the National Gallery at Berlin, became the most prominent partisan of the new French school. He had begun his work as director of the gallery by overhauling the modern German school ; he elimi- nated a number of mediocre paintings, and gave emphasis to those masters who had hitherto remained unknown or neglected ; thus he brought together a collection upon which it was possible to base an opinion of the German school as a whole. Having accom- plished this first task, he believed that he ought to secure for the gallery some examples of the French painters — of Manet and the Impressionists — whose work, constituting a renascence in painting, could not but produce beneficial results when known in Germany. He was aware, however, that to attempt to buy the works of foreign artists, whose merit was still the subject of discussion, out of the funds which the State allowed the gallery was impracticable. Accordingly, in 1896, he set to work to raise funds on his own initiative. He appealed to a number of wealthy men, persuaded them that in contributing they would be doing a public service, and so obtained considerable sums with which, in the course of a few years, he was able to procure a representative collection — two Manets, including Dans la serre of the Salon of 1876; three Renoirs, including Les Enfants Bcrard ; one Degas, three Claude Monets, one Sisley, one Pissarro, and three Cezannes. 200 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS In general, directors of public galleries are men who, without great personal effort, employ more or less advantageously, and sometimes very disadvantageously, the funds which the State places at their disposal. The case of Herr von Tschudi, therefore, a director who travels up and down the country carrying on a kind of propaganda among wealthy people, with a view to securing their assistance in adding to the collections under his charge, is so excep- tionally meritorious, that it might have been supposed that his action would have been warmly applauded. Such, however, was not the case. He was indeed rewarded with the praise of those who were in sympathy with the advanced movement in art ; but he had to undergo the violent attacks of all those devotees of tradition and obsolete formulas, who protested against the admission of the latest manifestations of French art into a German national gallery. Moreover, they were supported in the opposition by the Emperor William. With characteristic impulsiveness, the Emperor at once decided to settle the vexed question for himself, and announced his intention of visiting the gallery in order to determine the fate of the newly- acquired Impressionist paintings. From his well-known preference for correct traditional art, it was conjectured that they would find little favour in his sight. Herr von Tschudi awaited his visit, prepared to submit to the consequences which might result from it ; but at the last moment he had misgivings about the picture by Cezanne, and put it away out of sight. It appeared to him that the sight of the Cezanne would assuredly destroy whatever slight chance there was that the other pictures would meet with the Emperor's acceptance. In matters of art, unfortunately, emperors have no special infallibility. The Emperor William's judgment upon Manet and the Impressionists was very similar to that which the Parisian bourgeois had formerly pronounced — he found that their works lacked interest! He ordered them to be removed from the place which had been selected for them on the first lioor, and only allowed them to remain in the gallery on condition that they should be placed in a less prominent position on the second floor. It is even probable that he would have ordered their ex- pulsion altogether, had he not been restrained by a sense of the IN 11)00 201 consideration due to the men of wealth and influence who had contributed the funds for their purchase. When the Emperor had gone, Herr von Tschudi replaced the Cezanne with the other pictures. A friend to whom I related this incident remarked that an emperor could not be expected to feel anything but horror at such unarckist painting as that of Cezanne. The work which men such as Herr von Tschudi and Max Liebermann had accomplished at Berlin could not fail to arouse emulation in the other large towns of Germany. Municipal galleries, therefore, opened their doors to Manet and the Impres- sionists. Hamburg possesses Manet's Portrait de Rochefort of the Salon of 1881 ; Bremen, Claude Monet's Cam i lie of the Salon of 1866 and Manet's portrait of Zacharie Astruc ; and Frankfort and Stuttgart various works of the Impressionists. At Hagen, in \Vestphalia, Herr Ernst Osthaus has formed a collection known as the Folkwang Museum, which is open to the public. It con- tains Renoir's Line of the Salon of 1868 and works by the latest exponents of Impressionism, including Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Maurice Denis, Vuillard, etc. Private collections have also been formed in Berlin and other large towns. If they continue to in- crease, and it appears probable that they will, it will be possible to study the last expression of French painting as well in Germany as in France itself. • •»••••• The works of Manet and the Impressionists owed their intro- duction to the United States to M. Durand-Ruel. He organised an exhibition in New York in 1886, which was held first at the American Art Association, and afterwards transferred to the Academy of Design. It included fourteen pictures by Manet, twenty -two by Degas, forty-one by Pissarro, fifty by Claude Monet, twelve by Sisley, thirty-six by Renoir, eight by Berthe Morisot, seven by Guillaumin. He followed this up by exhibit- ing a fresh collection at the American Art Association in 1887. I paid a visit to the United States in 1888, and in New York received convincing proof of the success which had attended M. Durand-Ruel's initiation of Impressionist art. I visited the early collectors of Impressionist paintings. Mr. Irwin Davis possessed 202 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS Manet's Enfant a tepee and an important picture by Degas, Les Danseuses roses. I found that Mr. Spencer was the owner of Renoir's portrait of Mine. Clapisson. If this portrait were to be exhibited to-day, it would be received with general approbation, but when it was first painted it was rejected by M. Clapisson, who found that it did not do justice to his wife's beauty. M. Durand- Ruel sent it to America, where it found a purchaser in Mr. Spencer. At Orange, in New Jersey, I also saw a collection which com- prised works by Manet and the Impressionists. This was still the heroic age of the new painting. It was still only appreciated by a very small minority. But the ardent enthu- siasm, the birth and growth of which I had witnessed in France, manifested itself here also. Moreover, America is free from the prejudices of the Old World ; the atmosphere is favourable to novelties. Hence Manet and the Impressionists did not en- counter there that desperate resistance which they had to over- come in France and Germany. In these old countries the organised strength of academies of official art for a long time succeeded in blocking the way and were able to treat the innova- tors with cruel injustice. Nothing of the kind existed in America. In taking root there, the new art had only to overcome an opposi- tion due to the astonishment which is at first naturally evoked by the appearance of original forms and modes of art. It was, there- fore, soon accepted as worthy of a place by the side of those forms which were already firmly established. The Metropolitan Museum at New York now possesses two works by Manet, presented by Mr. Irwin Davis in 1889, L'Enfant a Tepee and Une jeune femme. L'Enfant a Tepee, painted in 1862, found more favour when it first appeared than any other of Manet's pictures, with the exception of Le Son Sock and Le Guitarero. Pleasing in its subject, executed in softly blended tones, it received nothing but praise from the very first. Une jeune femme, also known as La Femme au perroquet, on the other hand, was strongly condemned at the Salon of 1866, and has been more or less debated ever since. In these two works, there- fore, the Metropolitan Museum possesses examples of Manet's two manners, the sober and the violent. The collection has since been IN 1909 20.'3 enriched by the Portrait de Mme. Charpentier ct de ses en f ants by Renoir, purchased at the Charpentier sale in Paris in April 1907 for the sum of 84,000 francs. This brilliantly successful picture is one of the artist's most important works. The private collections of the United States now contain a very large number of the works of Manet and the Impressionists. The following is a list of paintings by Manet, with the names of their owners : — Le Guilarero .... L'Acteur tragique .... Le Repos ..... La Guilarisle .... Le Bureur d'eau .... I^e Combat de taureaux . Le Torero mart .... La Chanteuse des rues Les Courses ..... Le Philosophe .... Les Courses au Bout de Boulogne . Vue de Venise Mr. Osborn, New York Mr. George Vanderbilt, New York Mr. George Vanderbilt, New York Mr. Pope, New York Mr. McCormick, New York Mr. Inglis, New York Mr. Widener, Philadelphia Mrs. Sears, Boston Mr. Wittemore, Boston Mr. Eddy, Chicago Mrs. Potter- Palmer, Chicago Mr. Crocker, San Francisco Combat du "Kearsage" etde I' "Alabama" Mr. John Johnson, Philadelphia The works of Claude Monet in private collections are so nume- rous that it is impracticable to compile a list of them here. By far the most important collection of the works of Manet and the Impressionists which exists in the United States is that brought together by Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, in New York. It was formed partly with the advice of their friend Miss Mary Cassatt. After having gathered together one of the finest collections of the old Italian and Dutch masters, and of the French masters of the nineteenth century, Ingres, Corot, and Courbet, they turned their attention to the most recent of the French painters. Mrs. Havemeyer, to whom the collection passed after the death of her husband, possesses the following works by Manet : — Mile. V. . . . en costume d'espada, Jeune homme en costume de maja, Le Torero saluant, Le Christ aux anges, Le Jar din, Le Bal de I Opera, Le Port de Calais, Le Chemin de fer, Vue de Venise, En bateau, and other less important works and pastels. 204 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS She has also a large number of works by Degas, repre- senting every aspect of his art, also by Claude Monet and by Cezanne, including the latter painter's L ' Enlevement. England has remained the country where the painting of Manet and the Impressionists has been least appreciated. At first sight this fact may seem surprising, for one of the artists of the group, Sisley, was of English nationality, and not only he, but also Pissarro and Claude Monet, painted in England. No one except Whistler painted the Thames with such skill as Monet ; in his atmospheric views of the river he rendered its character and aspect with the same just observation as Whistler in his etchings and nocturnes. The results which the two men obtained with the help of different methods are fundamentally the same. The reason why the latest form which French painting assumed remained without influence in England, is explained by the fact that it found no affinity there. Its chief charac- teristics were the use of bright tones and the sensation of the open air, peculiarities which hitherto had not attracted English artists. True, it was an Englishman, Constable, who was one of the first to realise the value of working directly from nature in landscape painting. His works, when exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1824, had exercised a profound influence on the artists of that time, who were delighted with their freedom and sincerity. After that, the French landscape painters began to paint directly from nature. This method was gradually ex- tended until it reached its complete development with Manet and the Impressionists. But while Constable was understood in France, he had, during his lifetime, the support of only a small number of artists and connoisseurs in England, and died without having founded a school. English painters pursued a course quite different from his. The dominating influence was that of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. It has been erroneously attempted to establish a relationship between Turner and the French Impressionists; they differed greatly in their methods LE.S PARAI'l.UIKS IN 1909 205 and code of aesthetics. As for the Pre-Ilaphaelites, their art was at the opposite pole to the French realism, which reached its culmination in Manet and the Impressionists. The Pre- Ilaphaelites stayed themselves upon literature ; their gaze was directed less towards the external world of nature than towards the inner world of the imagination. One looks in vain, therefore, in English collections and galleries for the numerous examples of the work of Manet and the Impressionists which are to be found in Germany and the United States. There is one exception, however. A complete collection of modern painting has been formed by a man pos- sessed of that ardour of conviction which is able to perform prodigies. This gallery, however, is to be found not in Eng- land, but on the other side of St. George's Channel. Sir Hugh Lane has succeeded in securing the co-operation of certain wealthy men, artists and collectors, and the support of the municipality, in the creation of a complete municipal gallery of modern art at Dublin. The undertaking, which was begun in 1905, has had a rapid success. The initial step was to make an appeal to local patriotism by securing the works of Irish artists, which were naturally supplemented by those of English painters. The collection was then extended so as to comprise foreign works, chiefly those of the French school, and here the selection depended entirely upon the judgment of Sir Hugh Lane, who was appointed honorary director. Thus works by Corot, Daumier, Courbet, Alfred Stevens, Puvis de Chavannes and Degas were added to the collection. Finally, in order that the gallery might be wholly representative of modern art, Sir Hugh presented to it his own valuable collec- tion of pictures by Manet and the Impressionists, including Manet's Musique aux Tuileries, the portrait of Eva Gonzalcs of the Salon of 1870, Renoir's Les Parapluies, two Claude Monets, one Pissarro, and one Vuillard. This creation of a municipal gallery, the work of a single man of discerning taste, has given to Dublin a representative collection of modern pictures such as exists in no other town in the British Isles, not even in London. Mr. D. S. MacColl, 20G MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS the Director of the Tate Gallery in London, paid a remarkable tribute to the worth of the gallery in expressing his regret that it was not possible for him to achieve in his own domain in London what had been accomplished in Dublin. Irishmen in particular will readily appreciate the value of Sir Hugh Lane's gift of a collection of works by Manet and the Impressionists, after Mr. George Moore's exposition of the importance which this last phase of French painting possesses in the art of our time. 1 ^-v^Un+ iM-t. ' ' Ci i/u'l t&OtAf »"-.,» y?& v t /u 3 4-^ . >u^l jj lo^d^r. ft~» «>*^/-vUtu »«l. A^y ^-"> ^--^ etJr - oJ.- I. ^ APPENDICES APPENDIX I CATALOGUE OF THE PAINTINGS AND PASTELS OF EDOUARD MANET PAINTINGS FIRST WORKS 1. Head of Christ. Width 36 centimetres. Height 45 centimetres (14" x 18"). Seen full face. The hair falling on each side frames the head,. which is surrounded with an aureole. Red drapery. A reed on the left shoulder. Inlaid panel. Below, on the right, Manet, 1856. M. PAbbe Hurel, Paris. 2. Woman Lying on a Bed (Study). Width 72 centimetres. Height 61 centimetres (28" X 24"). She is resting on a big white pillow ; upper part of body nude, lower part covered with white drapery. Right arm bent, the hand pointing to her neck ; left arm stretched alongside the body, the hand placed on the drapery. Back- ground of conventional landscape. This picture must have been painted when Manet was still frequenting Couture's studio. M. Theodore Duret, Paris. 3. Little Landscape. Width 40 centimetres. Height 25 centimetres (16" X 10"). A big tree on the right whose branches spread over to the left and cover nearly all the top of the picture ; at the foot, two women, one standing, the other seated. On the left a clump of trees. In the background the sea with a few boats. Signed on the right. This picture, which must have been painted about 1857, recalls the mode of landscape painting which then prevailed among the " advanced " school, especially practised by Corot. M. Antonin Proust, Paris. NOTE. — This catalogue has been translated by Mr. Wynford Dewhurst. The measure- ments in inches are given approximately. 209 n 210 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS 4. Study of a Head. Exhibition 1867, No. 46. Width 46 centimetres. Height 55 centimetres (18" x 22"). The head, in profile, turned towards the left, is that of an aged man, hair and beard ragged. The collar of the white shirt is open. Madame Siredey. Paris. 5. Copy of the " Bark of Dante and Virgil,'"' by Delacroix ; done at the Luxembourg. Width 41£ centimetres. Height 33 centimetres (16" X 13"). Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York. 6. Copy of the " Littk Cavaliers" or " Gathering of Artists" by Velasquez, done at the Louvre. Exhibition 1867. Width 76 centimetres. Height 46 centimetres (30" x 18"). M. Faure, Paris. 7. Copy of the "Madonna with the White Rabbit" by Titian, done at the louvre. Exhibition 1867. Exhibition 1884, No. 2. Width 81 centimetres. Height 68 centimetres (32" x 27"). M. Faure, Paris. 8. Copy of the " Portrait of Tintoretto," by himself, done at the Louvre. Exhibition 1887. Exhibition 1884, No. 3. 9. Copy of a" Head of a Young Man" by Filippo Lippi, done at Florence. Exhibition 1884, No. 3. Very few of Manet's first works now exist. Those which remain form only a part of those which he produced. He himself destroyed, on the occasion of the successive removals accompanying his changes of studio, a great number of his early studies or attempts. M. Faure, Paris. 1858, 1859, 1860 10. The Boy with the Red Cap. Width 37 centimetres. Height 47 centimetres (15" X 19"). Full face. Head and shoulders. Red cap inclined on the left side of the head. Slight collar of white shirt. Greyish-black garment with a few buttons on top. Signed lightly on the right, E. M. M. Petel, Paris. This picture and the following one show the same boy's head crowned with the same red cap. APPENDIX I 211 11. The Boy with the Cherries. Exhibition 1884, No. 4. Width 55 centimetres. Height 65 centimetres (22" x 26"). A boy, half length, full face, wearing a red cap, holding some cherries between his hands. M. Leclanche, Paris. 12. The Absinthe Drinker. Rejected at the Salon of 1859. Exhibition 1867, No. 29. Exhibition 1884, No. 5. Width 99 centimetres. Height 1 metre, 30 centimetres (39" X 51"). M. Faure, Paris. 13. Portrait of the Abbe Hurel. Width 37 centimetres. Height 47 centimetres (15" x 19"). This portrait was originally 64 centimetres wide and 92 centimetres high, but it was cut and reduced to its present dimensions. Head of a young man seen in three-quarters profile. The costume is a black cassock, with a narrow white collar. Nearly life size. This head shows a reminiscence of a head by Filippo Lippi, of which Manet had previously made a copy at Florence. M. TAbbe Hurel, Paris. 14. The Woman with the Dogs. Width 65 centimetres. Height 92 centimetres (26" X 36"). A woman standing, her head covered with a handkerchief, is holding two dogs with the right hand ; in the background, on the left, a little perambulator is seen. This picture formed part of the Manet sale, although not formally entered in the catalogue. M. Camentron, Paris. 15. The Woman with the Pitcher, or La Verseuse. Width 45 centimetres. Height 55 centimetres (18" X 22"). She is turning towards the right, bareheaded, fair haired ; clothed in a white garment, open at the neck. She holds in the right hand a basin into which she is pouring water from a little pitcher or vase, held in the left hand. On the left a green partition for background, on the right an opening through .a window on to the country and the sky. M. Laurent-Cely, Asnieres. 16. Music at the Tuileries. Exhibition 1867, No. 64. Exhibition 1884, No. 9. Width 1 metre 19 centimetres. Height 76 centimetres (45" X 30"). A fashionable crowd under some trees. Some ladies sitting down, in their midst some gentlemen standing. Municipal Gallery, Dublin. 212 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS 17 A study made in the garden of the Tuileries, about the same time as the Music at the Tuileries, representing some children under t Width 46 centimetres. Height 38 centimetres (18" X 15"). M. Durand-Ruel, Pans. 18. Portrait of Rudini. Manet Sale, No. 37. Width 50i centimetres. Height 61+ centimetres (20" X 24"). Full face/with a moustache; a parting on the left side of the head divides the hair. Stand-up collar, cravat filling the opening of the waistcoat, clothing. Head and shoulders. M. Auguste Pellenn, F 19 Angelina. Catalogued as A Lady at her Window at the Exhibition of 1867, No. 39. Caillebotte Bequest. Musee du Luxembourg, Paris. 20 Young Lady in 1860. Catalogued Portrait of Mm*. B at the ' Exhibition of 1867, No. 20. Manet Sale, No. 45. Width 98 centimetres. Height 1 metre SO centimetres (39" X 51"). She is life size, standing up, full face, wearing a black toque or hat. Clothed in a sort of black mantle or jacket. The right arm, with a gloved hand, falling along the body, on the jacket; the left arm bent towards waist, the hand holding a glove. The figure stands out on a background , trees, with an opening on the sky, at the right. M. Jacques Blanche, Pans. 21. The Urchin, or Soy with the Dog. Exhibition 1867, No. 23. Exhibition 1884, No. 7. Width 72 centimetres. Height 92 centimetres (28" X 36"). A bareheaded urchin, seen nearly full face, holding, with his right arn which is bent, a basket, out of which he is taking something to give the dog, whose head can be seen 'on the right at the bottom of the picture, sky as background. M. Rosenberg, Paris. 22. Portraits of M. and Mme. M (Manet). Salon of 1861. Mme. Ernest Rouart, Paris. 23. The Spanish Singer or Guitarero. Salon of 1861. Exposition Univer- selle of 1889. M- Osborn> New Yor k • APPENDIX I 213 1861-1862 24. The Startkd Nymph. Exhibition 1867, No. 30. Exhibition 1884, No. 18. Manet Sale, No. 14. Width 1 metre 14 centimetres. Height 1 metre 46 centimetres (45" X 58"). She is nude, sitting down, turned towards the left, on a red oriental drapery, with green and yellow stripes. Her hair hangs loose down her back. A white drapery twisted round the leg. Background of green landscape. M. Manzi, Paris. 25. Sketch of the above Nymph, Manet Sale, No. 18. Width 36 centi- metres. Height 46 centimetres (14" X 18"). M. Beruheim jeune, Paris. 26. The Students of Salamanca. Exhibition 1867, No. 44. Width 92 centimetres. Height 73 centimetres (86" X 29"). Two students, in the middle of the canvas, in traditional costume, clothed in black, with white bands and leather belt ; one standing up wearing a hat, the other bareheaded, on his knees ; the two hands placed on the ground, in the midst of a landscape with big trees. M. Manzi, Paris. 27. Scene in a Spanish Stitdio. Manet Sale, No. 46. Width 37| centimetres. Height^ centimetres (15" X 18"). Velasquez seated before a canvas, his palette in his hand. Close to him a cavalier standing up, back view, a cane in his hand. On the right another cavalier standing up, both hands resting on a cane. The two cavaliers have white lace collars, and they are reproduced from two figures in the " Gathering of Artists " by Velasquez in the Louvre. M. Jacques Blanche, Paris. 28. Little Spanish Cavaliers. Width 25 centimetres. Height 45 centimetres (10" X 18"). On the left two bareheaded cavaliers standing. One in greyish-black, the other in red, with a white lace collar. On the right, in the background, a cavalier in pink, seen three-quarters of back. In front a little boy bearing a tray. Background, a room with open door. M. Cheramy, Paris. This little picture, in which the figures are painted after some little cavaliers in the " Gathering of Artists " by Velasquez, was executed at the same time as the preceding one. 214 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS 29. The Spanish Ballet. Exhibition 1867, No. 28. Exhibition 1884, No. 12. Width 91 centimetres. Height 62 centimetres (36" X 24"). On the right a male and female dancer are dancing, accompanying them- selves on castanets. On the left a male dancer standing and a female dancer seated are resting. On the floor a bouquet of flowers, surrounded with white paper. Signed and dated: Ed. Manet, 1862. M. Durand-Ruel, Paris. The male dancer, standing up, who figures on the right of the picture, was called Camprubi. Manet reproduced him separately in an etching and in a tinted brush-drawing. 30. Portrait of Victorine Meurend. Head and shoulders. She is seen full face, slightly turned towards the left. The right ear, with an ear-ring, is the only one visible ; reddish-blonde hair, divided by a parting in the middle of the forehead. Blue ribbon, tied at the top of the head. Black garment round the shoulders, with a few black stripes. Signed at the top, on the right. M. Alphonse Kann, Paris. Victorine Meurend was a young girl whom Manet had met by chance in the midst of the crowd in a room at the Palais de Justice. He had been struck with her original appearance and her decided ways. She had reddish-blonde hair, a very white skin, and a very peculiar expression. She came to his studio and he first painted this head of her. Then he utilised her as model for two works, "The Street Singer" and "Mile. Victorine en Costume D'Espada." From this time she became his favourite model, and all those who knew Manet and frequented his studio between 1862 and 1875 became acquainted with Victorine. She also posed for the woman in the " Lunch on the Grass," for "Olympia," "The Young Woman in 1866," "The Guitar Player," and the woman in blue in the " Railway." 31. The Street Singer. Exhibition 1867, No. 19. Exhibition 1884, No. 10. Width 1 metre 18 centimetres. Height 1 metre 74 centimetres (46" X 69"). Standing up, full length, life size, clothed in a grey dress ; she is holding her guitar under her arm and eating cherries. Mrs. Montgomery-Sears, Boston. 32. Young Man Dressed as a Torero. Exhibition 1867. Exhibition 1884, No. 11. Width 1 metre 30 centimetres. Height 1 metre 96 centimetres (51" x 77") APPENDIX I 215 He is standing up, resting one arm on a long stick, and spread out on the arm is a long Spanish shawl with a red ground. The painter's brother, Eugene, served as model. Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York. 33. Fishing. Width 1 metre 22 centimetres. Height 77 centimetres (48" X 30"). In the sky on the left, a rainbow. River in the midst of a wooded land- scape. On the river a boat with three occupants, one of them fishing with a line. On the right, Manet and his wife with a greyhound, dressed in Rubens costumes. M. Durand-Ruel, Paris. 34. Another study of an analogous subject, Fishing. Width 56 centimetres. Height 46 centimetres (22" x 18"). A fisherman in his shirt sleeves, holding a line. The background is formed by the wooded bank of the river. 35. Woman Lying on a Sofa, also called The Mistress of Baudelaire. Width 1 metre 13 centimetres. Height 90 centimetres (44" X 35"). The head is shown full face, the hair hanging down each side. A very dark woman, clothed in a striped dress, slightly open at the neck. The skirt, of exaggerated width and puffed out, is supported by a crinoline, according to the fashion of the time. One foot, with the lower part of the leg, projects from the skirt. The right hand is placed on the back of the sofa. In the background a muslin curtain in front of a window. The woman, who seems to be a Creole, had been brought to Manet's studio bv Baudelaire, and she was supposed to be his mistress. M. Cassirer, Berlin. 36. Lola de Valence. Exhibition 1867, No. 17. Exhibition 1884, No. 14. Width 93 centimetres. Height 1 metre 5 centimetres (37" X 41"). Originally the figure stood out against a neutral background. The theatrical accessories were added afterwards. M. le Comte de Camondo, Paris. 37. Mile. V. en Costume D"Espada. Exhibition 1867, No. 12. Exhibition 1834, No. 15. Width 1 metre 29 centimetres. Height 1 metre 66 centimetres (51" X 65"). She is standing up, life size, advancing into the bull-ring, both arms uplifted ; in one hand a coloured flag, in the other a sword. Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York. 216 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS 38. Oysters (Still Life). Exhibition 1884, No. 18. Manet Sale, No. 90. Width 46| centimetres. Height 38| centimetres (18" x 15"). Six oysters open on a plate, on the left. Two oysters open, with two halves of a cut lemon and a china pepper-pot on the right. A fork in the middle, in front M. Paul Gallimard, Paris. 39. Guitar and Hat, Exterior of Door. Exhibition 1884, No. 17. Manet Sale, No. 91. Width 1 metre 22 centimetres. Height 77£ centimetres (48" x 31"). A guitar, the neck turned to the right, on top of a kind of basket and some white linen. On the guitar, a round, broad-brimmed hat. 40. The Old Musician. Exhibition 1867, No. 10. Exhibition 1884, No. 16. Width 2 metres 51 centimetres. Height 1 metre 90 centimetres (99" X 75"). M. Durand-liuel, Paris. 41. The Child with a Sword. Exhibition 1867, No. 4. Metropolitan Museum, New York. 42. A small copy of The Child with a Sword, by Manet. Width 31 centimetres. Height 42 centimetres (12" X 16"). M. Gerard, Paris. 1863, 1864, 1865 43. The Lunch on the Grass. Salon des Refuses 1863. Universal Exhibition of 1900. Width 2 metres 70 centimetres. Height 2 metres 14 centimetres (106" X 84"). Collection Moreau. Musee des Arts decoratifs, Paris. 44. Olympia. Salon of 1865. Universal Exhibition of 1889. The Louvre, Paris. 45. Tlie Negress. Width 49 centimetres. Height 59 centimetres (19" x 23"). A negress, seen full face, half length, her head wrapped in a parti-coloured handkerchief, wearing a necklace, low dress, white chemise. APPENDIX I 217 46. Young Woman Lying Dozen, in a Spanish Costume. Width 1 metre 5 centimetres. Height 95 centimetres (41"x37"). She is lying on a garnet-coloured sofa or couch, her right arm raised and hand placed on her head. To the right, on the floor, a little grey cat playing with an orange. This picture was given by Manet to Nadar, and it bears the inscription, "A mon ami Nadar." M. Edouard Arnhold, Berlin. 47. The Posada. Exhibition 1884, No. 21. Width 89 centimetres. Height 52 centimetres (35" x 20"). Groups of bull-fighters, some wearing mantles. In the middle, the principal group formed of men standing up. To the left, one of them is seated on a bench. To the right another is seated on a table. Mr. A. Pope, Farmington, U.S.A. 48. Portrait of Zacharie Astruc. Exhibition 1867, No. 34. Width 1 metre 15 centimetres. Height 90 centimetres (45"x35"). Full face, seated in an arm-chair, half length ; the left hand on his chest thrust into the waistcoat, the right hanging down, resting on the arm of the chair. To the left of the canvas, back of a room, in which are seen a woman, back view, and a rocking-chair. Bremen Museum, Bremen. 49. Pears (Still Life) Exhibition 1884, No. 22. Two big pears. The one on the left upright, with the stalk turned upwards. The other on its side with the stalk turned towards the right of the canvas. 50. Race-course. Width 31 centimetres. Height 41 centimetres (12"x 16")- Two ladies standing up against the ropes and posts of a race-course. The one on the left wearing a crinoline skirt and a grey jacket, a green parasol open in her hand ; the other, on the right, wearing a yellow dress, with a blue ribbon in her hat. Signed on the right : Manet 1863. 51. The Dead Man. Exhibition 1867, No. 5. Exhibition 1884, No. 24. Width 1 metre 53 centimetres. Height 75 centimetres (60" x 30"). Life sized, stretched out dead, clothed in bull-fighter's costume ; foreshortened, head towards the foreground. This picture is the principal fragment of the picture exhibited at the Salon 218 MANET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS of 1864, under the title, " Episode of a Bull-fight," which was cut and divided into two. Mr. Widener, Philadelphia. 52. The second fragment of the Bull- fight. Width 1 metre 8 centimetres. Height 48 centimetres (43" X 19"). Represents three bull-fighters against the balustrade of the ring, with a black bull in front, cut in half lengthways. Two of the bull-fighters have also their legs partly cut off below. M. le Baron Vitta, Paris. 53. The Water Drinker. Width 48 centimetres. Height 57 centimetres (19" X 22"). A boy in his shirt sleeves, seen in profile turned towards the left, holds in his uplifted arms a vessel full of water ; his head thrown back and his mouth wide open ; a stream of water pouring out of the neck of the vessel into his mouth. M. Durand-Ruel, Paris. This picture is a fragment taken from the big picture, the " Gipsies," Exhi- bition 1867, which Manet cut, and from which he detached this and two other figures (54 and 55) catalogued at his sale : Male Gipsy, No. 52 — width 73 centimetres, height 92i centimetres. Female Gipsy, No. 53 — width 73 centimetres, height 92 centimetres (29" X 36"). 56. The Dead Christ and the Angels. Salon of 1864. M. Durancl-Ruel, Paris. 57. Jesus, Insulted by the Soldiers. M. Durand-Ruel, Paris. 58. A Study of the Head of" Jems Insulted.'" Width 30 centimetres. Height 40 centimetres (12" X 16"). The head is bent and turned to the left, surrounded with a crown of thorns. M. le Marquis de Narbonne, Paris. Besides the two pictures of episodes in the life of Christ exhibited at the Salons of 1864 and 1865, Manet had a project of executing a third, Christ and Magdalen, which was not carried out. All that remains of this project is a preliminary grouping of the whole — No. 59— a sketch, 32 centimetres wide, 39 centimetres high (13" X 15"), which belongs to M. I1 Abbe Hurel, and a more finished study — No. 60 — representing Christ, head and shoulders, life size. Oval about 50 centimetres wide and 63 centimetres high (20" X 25"). The head is seen full face, with long hair falling down both sides on the APPENDIX I 219 shoulders ; the right hand is open and stretched out, as though emphasising words, the left holding a long stick, placed on the shoulder. M. le Marquis de Narbonne, Paris. 61. The Smoker. Exhibition 1867, No. 49. Exhibition 1884, No. 26. Pertuiset Sale, June 1888. Catalogued as The Good Pi/n: Width 80 centimetres. Height 1 metre (31" X 39"). He is life size, half length, wearing a sort of cap made of otter-skin, smoking his pipe, which he holds with the right hand, resting on the elbow. M. Durand-Ruel, Paris. 62. A Monk Praying. Exhibition 1867, No. 21. Exhibition 1884, No. 25. Width 1 metre 14 centimetres. Height 1 metre 46 centimetres (45"x57"). He is life size, kneeling down, in the act of prayer, both arms stretched out, a cord round his waist, of which one end falls on the floor. Beside him a skull. M. Jacques Blanche, Paris. 63. The Reader. Exhibition 1867, No. 27. Universal Exhibition 1889. Width 82 centimetres. Height 1 metre 2 centimetres (32" x 45"). He is life size, half length, bareheaded, leaning over a bi